Pony Symphony
by Dat fucking writefag
Summary: Crossover with Cowboy Bebop and FiM.  Twilight Sparkle has found something in her studies which is about to be the discovery of the century.
1. Chapter 1

It knocked on the wooden door. No response. Another knock, this time harder and more impatient. Still no answer. "Hello? Anyone in ther'?", came a loud shout from the knocker. After a while the door gave a small long-lasting crack and it finally opened slightly. A purple head of a baby dragon revealed itself, a curious look plastered on his face.

"Yeah?", came the question.

"Oh howdy, Spike.", replied the orange pony Applejack happily. "Ah am jus' takin' a break from harvestin' dem apple trees and wanted to look how Twilight's doin'. Haven't seen her since a while..."

Spike opened the door completely and shook his little head. "Oh, sorry, AJ, but Twilight's been really busy now-"

"Again?", AJ shot back frowned. "Ye know, it's not healthy for her to study all th'time. She hasn't been out for weeks now, she ev'n missed sum of Pinkie Pie's parties."

Spike hold his right arm behind is back and looked down shamefully. "I know, I tried to get her out, but she just doesn't move an inch. Rainbow Dash tried to shove her out several times a few days ago, but she just kept teleporting herself back to her study room. I am onto something, she just says the whole time, yet she doesn't tell me what she is looking for."

AJ raised her head and looked up at the roof of the tree house. All the curtains are closed. The orange pony shook her head and sighed. "Ah, well, guess it can't be helped. But it bothers me really-"

"HEUREKA!", came the very loud shriek from the inside of the house. Both dragon and pony jumped at the high pitch sound and looked into the house. There she was, Twilight Sparkle, running down the stairs in pure excitement. It was as if she has seen Princess Celestia again. "Uh, howdy Twilight?"

"Oh, Applejack! So very very glad to see you now!", the violet pony answered, her face full of happy stars. "Spike, call the others. I have an announcement to make!"

* * *

It wasn't long until the middle room of Twilight's house was filled with all her friends, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, AJ and Fluttershy. All were anticipated. "Any idea what she is about to announce?", Dash asked Pinkie Pie, since the pink pony was known for her forecast abilities.

"Only that it's going to be exciting!", she replied in her Pinkie way, hopping around the room. The blue pegasus rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I hope it gets done soon, I was just taking a nap."

"Ye ar' always takin' a ponydamn nap", Applejack shot at her with an annoyed look.

"Ehm, please don't argue", Fluttershy whispered weakly, unsure how to handle the situation.

It was when Twilight Sparkle showed up again, this time less vivid than AJ seen her. She looked really exhausted, huge black bangs under her eyes, her mane full of fuzzes, and she smelled like as if she didn't take a shower for days. "Oh my dear Twilight Sparkle, you look absolutely miserable!", Rarity said shocked and went closer to the violet pony. "We have to make something with your mane, darling."

"I'm fine, really", she just waved her hoof absently and forced a smile on her face to reassure the others. "It's great that you came that fast. I have made a great discovery." She pointed her hoof on the table nearby which was full of opened books and crumbled pieces of papers.

"Yeah, seeing you doing a mess is a real big discovery!", sarcasm dripped from Rainbow Dash's statement. "Not the table, silly", Twilight snickered, unaware of the sarcasm. She went behind the table where a statue of a pony sit on and brought out a schedule with a big paper hanging on it. "A map?", asked AJ unsure? "Is that the discovery?"

Twilight shook her head, a proud smile plastered on her face. "Well, it is on the map. I was ordered by Princess Celestia to decipher old manuscripts found in the library of Canterlot 2 weeks ago. They were many centuries old and written in a really really old language. Took me hell of ride to translate them, but sure was worth it." She shoved the schedule to the center of the room. A pointer has been summoned by Twilight's magic and it's end was tapping on the map. "This, ladies, is the map of Equestria. The old manuscripts tells the saga of a mighty empire which ruled before Princess Celestria and Princess Luna watched over day and night. I am sure you heard of the tales of Andromeda."

"Oh, oh, oh!", Pinkie shot up and raised her right hoof as far as she could and jumped several times. Twilight sighed and looked away. "Yes, Pinkie?"

"Is it the one with many many many years ago where angels ruled over the heaven and then they got greedy and made stars all over the world which made very very big KA-BOOMS and then they were all gone and then -" Pinkie Pie would have continued if she weren't stopped by a Twilight's hoof in her mouth. "Yes, that's the one."

"Wait, isn't that jus' sum fairy tale?", AJ interrupted and looked suspiciously at the map.

"Indeed it is, but it seems there may be a grain of truth", Twilight Sparkle let go of Pinkie's mouth and returned her attention to the map. "The manuscripts were written by Eqestrius Longuus, an ancient traveler who recorded of everything queer he found in Equestria. He mentioned of a temple which he believed was build by the angels. And it should be riiiiiiiight..." the pointer stopped near ponyville. "Within the Everfree Forest!"  
"Wait just a minute, Twilight!", AJ interrupted again. "This can't be right. Angels dun' exist, this is just sum dumb filly story."

"Well, that's why I have called all of you. I want to find out if Equestrius Longuus' record is true. The only way to do so is to go there and find the temple!", Twilight encountered, her excitement overtaking her again. "Imagine this, we would be the very first ponies in modern history who found evidence that angels existed! Who's with me?"

"Oh, I love treasure hunting!", the pink pony blurred out and jumped several times in hyperbolic excitement once more. "Take me with you, take me with you!"

"Count me in", Rainbow Dash replied with a smug grin and put a hoof on her breast. "I won't say no to a challenge!"

"Well, seems I have to take the risk. Imagine what will happen if you are all alone in this dark forest and don't have the right make-up.", Rarity sighed and stepped to Twilight side.

Fluttershy gave a nervous look towards the other ponies and looked then to Twilight. "Uhh...do I have to go?"

"Oh course, silly filly, who else could deal with all the monsters in there like yourself?", Pinkie replied with glee and patted on the to thecore shocked Fluttershy's head.  
"What about you, AJ?", Twilight Sparkle asked the orange pony. She was the only one left who hasn't agreed yet. But Applejack shook her head concerned. "I don't know Twi, but ah got a bad feeling about this. As ah said, this is just a filly's tale, and ah don't think it's worth to risk our lives in Everfree Forest jus' for this."

Everypony looked disappointed and lowered her heads. "But", she continued, the heads of the ponies rising again. "Ah can't let ye all go alone either. Count me in!"

Twilight Sparkle clapped her hoofs happily. "Alright, let's go then!"

Suddenly a rumble came from her tummy. The lila pony laughed ashamed and blushed. "But...perhaps we should eat first?"

_to be continued_


	2. Session α:Tango with Charon,part 1

**- Tango with Charon -_part one_**

"Please tell me why I had to go with you?", Spike muttered, sitting on Twilight Sparkle's back and holding a small lamp filled with fireflies.

"Spike, you should know that at best. If we get lost here you can always send a S.o.S.-letter to Princess Celestia so she can send us a rescue squad.", the violet pony replied with an amused smile.

"Oh...well, that makes sense", the purple dragon sighed, knowing that he already lost the argue. The ponies (and dragon) were already within the heart of the Everfree Forest. Twilight Sparkle wore her expedition hat as well carried several archeology tools along such as a pickaxe, rope, and brushes. The others were trotting along but remained quiet. They had been here before when they had to stop Nightmare Moon's attempt to bring eternal night onto Equestria. Or the time when they were looking for Zecora. Nothing has changed much since their last entering: Big old trees covering the skies like clouds, strange noises coming from the dark corners of the woods, and the weird feeling of being watched. _And now here we are for no reason at all, _Applejack thought frowning and tried to suppress her fears of this cursed forest. _Just some adventure with somepony who takes filly stories literally._ She sighed and looked towards the excited Twilight. _Well, can't be helped, _she added mentally. She had asked Big Mac' for taking over her shift and would in return doing his one later, but she didn't like skipping work. Not for something meaningless as this.

"So um...", Dash started, looking at Twilight uncertain. "What is this Andromeda tale about?"

"You mean you never heard of it?", asked Twilight Sparkle surprised. "It's common knowledge, or did you never had it at flight school?"

"Err... oh yeah, I did, but didn't listen to the whole details", Dash tried to excuse herself and waved a hoof dismissively, a forced chuckling leaving her raspy voice." You know I am not much of a bookworm, Twilight...no offense."

"Oh, oh, can I tell, may I, may I?", Pinkie Pie jumped between the unicorn and the pegasus,making them both jump up at surprise. Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes and sighed: "Yeah, sure, Pinkie."

The pink Pony squeaked happily and jumped before all ponies while walking backwards as if she was levitating.

"Ahem", she coughed to get all attention from her friends before she could start singing:  
"_Long ago, when gods lived in the skies,_

_they send their angels to the stars beyond highs._

_Indeed with their powers_

_they freshened the lone towers_

_with live and joy._

_But the angels lost their holy ploy,_

_they fell from heaven._

_They wanted back home,_

_knocked at their lords' door,_

_but they abandoned them, becoming alone._

"_Why don't you let us in?", they cried,_

_their tears turning to meteors,_

_but then their hope died._

_Forced out of heaven,_

_devils they became,_

_and waged war on each other_

_for glory and claim._

_They crafted new stars,_

_one brighter than the other,_

_until one made the biggest on Mars:_

_Andromeda she was called,_

_the most beautiful, yet most brawled._

_She lifted to heaven, reaching to the gods,_

_and then by all odds..."_

Pinkie Pie stopped walking and put made a thinker pose. "Hmm, I can't remember the rest. It was something about ka-boom. Oh right!KABOOM!", she cried out loud, making the others ponies jump up again. "_And they fell into doom_! The end!" The pink pony jumped several times and clopped her hoofs in joy.  
"Well, that certainly was one pony tale", Rarity commented, not sure if this was the version she heard back then at fohlengarten.

"Oh, I love it, it's my favourite. I especially liked the part where everything went KA-Boooooooooom..." The pink pony didn't look behind her back as she continued going backwards until she realized that she fell from a cliff.

"Pinkie Pie!", Twilight screamed shocked, but Dash reacted faster. She dived like light itself into the abyss, leaving a trail of rainbow behind, and came back with Pinkie Pie on her back.

"Oopsie, how clumsy-dumbsy from me. Thanks Rainbow", the pink pony chuckled in amusement, not minding the fact that she nearly died.

After the ponies recollected themselves at the matter of hoofs, they looked down the cliff. It was a huge chasm which reached a radius of several miles, and within was pure darkness. Applejack kicked a big rock to the chasm. It fell into the void without further complaint. The group waited for the momentum of the rebound, and it took a long time until they heard a dull bang.  
"Well, what now, Twi?", AJ asked coolly. The violet pony's snooze rustled in her traveling pack and took the map out. Twilight unwrapped and studied it, Spike giving her enough light with the small lamp.

"I am certain of it, the temple must be down there", she stated in her analytical manner.

Fluttershy gasped and started to tremble all over her body. _Down there?_

"You kiddin', right?", Applejack asked frowning. Twilight shook her head with closed eyed. "Look, Twi, ah know you really want to find dat temple, but dat is complete suicide!", the orange pony said concerned.

"What's wrong, Applejack? Scared of one hole?", Rainbow Dash asked jokingly, and threw her hoofs up to make ghostly "woo-hoo" gestures. Pinkie Pie joined, probably just for fun rather than to provoke Applejack.

"Of course not", the orange pony said, giving a dark glare at both. "But ah ain' no daredevil! Jus' how d'yeh think we can get down there without risking all our lives, Rainbow? Yeh an' Fluttershy can't get all of us down ground in that height!"

"Don't worry, AJ, I knew this could be case, so I made certain preparations before we left." Everypony turned all their attention to Twilight Sparkle. Suddenly there laid a full blown hot air balloon beside her. Spike was putting the fireflies into an manually installed headlight.

"Errr, how did ye do that?", AJ asked surprised, like the others gaping.

"It's a summon spell which can teleport objects over wide ranges. It doesn't work well with living beings, but it's more than enough", she replied casually, went with Spike into the basket, and looked out again with a huge grin. "Tickets, please."

* * *

The balloon dived deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness. Only the fire to lift the balloon and a the headlight were able to lit the black space, but only a little. The beautifully crafted designs on both balloon and basked were almost covered by shadows. The only pony who wasn't sitting in the basked was Rainbow Dash who was flying closely to the balloon to look out for sharp edges. Twilight was controlling both the fire and the headlight and thus coordinated the flight. Fluttershy was hiding between Rarity and Applejack and laid on the ground with her hoofs covering her eyes while whispering "_There is no place like home, there is no place like home._" Rarity was also trembling slightly, and Applejack tried to keep a steady face. She didn't tell the others about it, but she suffered from vertigo. It wasn't bad when it comes to, say, jumping from ten meter high, but when she was flying down the darkness with no end? Yeah, even she would be creeped out a little. Pinkie Pie was oblivious to all of this and ate some cupcakes she packet as rations. However she noticed that Spike was sitting in one corner, making a thinker pose.

"Spike, what's wrong?", the pink pony asked concerned.

"I just don't get it", came the simple reply from the purple dragon.

"Get what?", she asked, craning her neck.

"Why were the angels forced out of heaven? And more importantly, why did they waged war on each other? It doesn't make any sense..."

"Yeah", Rainbow appeared before them and looked also deep in thought. "If I were forced out of Cloudsville I couldn't wage war on you guys, although I know I would defeat all of you definitively just with my awesomeness".

"Ach, Spike, it jus' sum mares tale told to li'l fillies to teach them the value of friendship. Dun' take it seriously", Applejack tried to comfort Spike while ignoring Dash's usual smugness.

"On the contrary, there are several interpretations to this tale, one contradicting the other", Twilight Sparkle quipped in, earning an annoyed look from the orange pony. "One goes that huge meteor showers happened all over the skies and our ancestors believed that it was a war between angels. The other said it was an old memory when all ponies had wings and horns long before Princess Celestia and Luna ruled over sun and moon. But for some reason they divided into the three types of ponies we know: Earth pony, unicorn and pegasus. The factions waged war on each other for winning territories over Equestria. Andromeda was maybe a spell performed by a really strong sorcerer which brought nearly the whole annihilation of ponykind. If Princess Celestia and Princess Luna didn't became the rulers of Equestria and brought in harmony to the three factions, maybe we still would be in war."

She just realized that the others looked at her with wide eyes. She tried to reassure them with an embarrassed smile and a light chuckle: "Well, that's how the interpretation goes. Princess Celestia isn't really eloquent about what happened before her."

"You don't believe it, Twilight?", Pinkie asked curiously.

"I... don't know, I was actually like Applejack about this until I came across those old documents. Also, remember when I found out about the return of Nightmare Moon just by reading old tales? Maybe angels did exist."

"And ah still say they don't!", Applejack encountered, getting tired of Twilight's optimism. The violet pony raised an eyebrow towards AJ who in return sighed. " Look, maybe ye have been right about Nightmare Moon, but angels jus' ain't real! There never had been any traces of them, and Princess Celestia values science, ye are the very proof! From the beginning there hav' been only ponies and it will only be ponies."

"Don't be silly, AJ, we know little to nothing what happened before Princess Celestia, and Andromeda's tale is the only lead which could answer what happened before us ponies." Twilight encountered starkly, disregarding her former duty.

"Ah say it once more, this is jus' sum poetical excuse to teach li'l fillies not to harm the others if dung hits the fan. Ye are following nuthin' but a dream, Twi!", Applejack shot back. Soon both ponies were arguing, pushing their heads against each other like two enraged deers. The other ponies were shifting uncomfortably at the situation.

Spike raised his tiny claw and started with: "Uhh...Twilight-"

" You are the very one who believes every pony tale like _curses _and _evil zebras,_ so don't tell me what I am following or not, Miss li'l voice of reason !", Twilight Sparkle interrupted Spike and pushed her head stronger than before.

"Oh yeah, then maybe ye should've gone a lot more outside 'cause that bookwormin' of yers made yer brain dried up from reality", Applejack sneered and pushed her head forward in return. Suddenly there was a rumble and the others except the arguing ponies shot their heads up, and their eyes widened in shock.

"Twilight-"

"You don't understand any value of scientific research, your horizon is as far as your apple farm is. This has to be done for the sake of understanding the world of Equestria, end of discussion."

"Twilight-"

"Oh yeah, maybe ye should rather help me harvesting dem apples than to live in a library to understand what live is about-"

"_Twilight, Twilight, Twi-i-i-i-light_!", Pinkie Pie started in a sing-sang voice, hopping around them as if she was trying to summon the rain.

"WHAT?", both screamed at the annoying pink pony.  
"_We're falling into doom", _shefinished her singing with making an impressing pose, her hoof pointing upwards. They both looked up and gasped. Twilight forgot to check the fire lift and now it burned a hole into the envelope.

"Oh", they replied, realizing that they screwed up big time. "Er...sorry", Twilight excused herself with a small chuckle before the balloon started to fall at full speed. All sitting in them screamed out of panic. Rainbow Dash flew under the basked and tried to hold it with all her strength, but the basked started soon to press her down the abyss.

"Arrgh, I can't hold it much longer!", she grunted. "Fluttlershy, I need your help!". But the yellow pony trembled even stronger, still muttering "There is no place like home, there is no place like home."

"Do something, Twilight!", Spike pleaded her, holding her tail as if there was no tomorrow.

"Hold on, guys!", she said, her horn started to glow in a violet aura. This aura spread over the envelope and its damage started to disappear little by little. But unfortunately, it came into contact with the fire and a huge explosion erupted, knocking the basked even faster downwards, Rainbow Dash loosing halt and being thrown off.

"Damn!" Twilight Sparkle shouted out of frustration. She turned to the delusional yellow pony and roared like a manticore: "FLUTTERSHY, GET DOWN THERE IMMEDIATLY!"

Fluttershy's eyes shot up and did so as she was asked, this time scared more by Twilight's wrath than by her coming death. She pushed the basked with all her might, adrenalin started kicking in her blood out of fear. Rainbow Dash catched up once more and helped Fluttershy holding the falling basked. Both pegasi managed to get hold of it and lifted the basket slowly further down. The other ponies and Spike cheered for both, happy they survived the fall.

It wasn't long until the pegasi finally managed to land on solid ground. Both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy collapsed and breathed heavily like they were running for the annual Running of the Leaves.

The others left the basket carefully, still shaken up from the near death scenario. "Thanks a lot, both of you.", Twilight said relieved while dismounting the headlight.

"Oh, it- it was nothing", Dash groaned heavily, trying to keep on a tough look. "The- sonic rainboom was—more of a challenge. " Fluttershy supported the statement with a weak "Yaaaaaaay."

"Sure ye do, sugarcube", smiled Applejack, but focused on the new surrounding then. It was pitch dark, they can barely even see their own hoofs if it weren't for the dimly lit light of the fireflies.

"Oh my, where ARE we exactly?", Rarity asked out loud, feeling kinda silly making that question.  
_...are we exactly.. _came the replay out of nothing, making the white pony jump.

"OOOOH, I love echos!", Pinkie Pie squealed and started to make several sounds alien to the group which came back with even more alien copies. Then she started singing just to receive more echos:

"_Giggle at the ghosty.  
Guffaw at the grossly.  
Crack up at the cree-"_

She would've went on if AJ hadn't put a hoof into her mouth to make her silent.

"So, what now, Twi?", she asked the violet pony.

"Simple, we do for what we came for." She replied casually, binding the headlight around her neck. "Looking for the temple of the angles."

* * *

The deep end of the chasm revealed itself as a labyrinth of caverns which went different roads, diving into the deepest pits of the darkness. Stalagmites and stalactites were touching each other ends, revealing itself as a feral grin of the caves, the constant dripping of the water its savor as if the darkness was waiting for its next prey to devour into its black yap.

The group formed a line where each holds the tail of the other by their mouth. Only Fluttershy was to scared to and hid herself under Rainbow Dash wings. She snuggling up to the blue pegasus closely, making Dash blush out of embarrassment. Twilight was leading the group and lit the road ahead them while checking the map several times. Spike sat on her back who looked around scared.

"Calm down, Spike, there is nothing here", the violet pony told the purple dragon.

"Oh yeah,so no temples either?", AJ muttered while still holding Rainbow Dash's tail.

"But what about..._Morlocks?"_, Spike stammered, starting to hyperventilate, causing the other ponies to look around in fear.

"There are no _Morlocks,_ Spike, they are just made up fairy creatures", Twilight said and rolled her eyes.

"Uh-huh...like _angels_", AJ further muttered,the emphasis of the word angels made her biting deeply into Dash's tail.

"OWW!", Rainbow Dash shot up in the air while holding her tail. "That's it, Applejack, I am sick of you biting my tail the whole time.", she shouted at her angrily and flew ahead.

"Rainbow Dash, wait!", Twilight Sparkle shouted "That isn't the right road, come back!" But the blue pegasus was already gone, leaving the rest. Fluttershy lost her only cover and squeaked at shock and tried to hide in AJ's bound tail.

"Great", Twilight Sparkle groaned. "That's what we really need now." She looked around and tried to recollect herself. But she was interrupted once Rainbow showed up again, this time with a surprised look.

"Hey guys, you can't believe what I just found!", the pegasus said out of pure excitement.

"What, is it the temples?", Twilight asked, getting euphoric as well.

"It is so AWESOME!", she squealed and guided the group to her discovery. The others, AJ included, followed her, getting eager to what made Rainbow so hype. Suddenly when Dash went into the next corner, the ponies and the dragon saw a dim light source at the far end. The light became bright and brighter when they came closer to it. Then they saw it. It blew their minds off.

"Woah", they all whispered in their own way.


	3. Session α:Tango with Charon,part 2

**- Tango with Charon - part two-**

"It's the _coolest_ thing I have ever seen in my whole live!", Rainbow Dash quipped and flew around the astounded ponies. "And I was the one who found it first! That means I can name it how I want! IT IS SOOO **AWESOME**"

No one replied, they still were still taken aback from the monstrous surrounding.

It were mountains. Really huge gray mountains, but not the ones they knew at home. They have got different shapes, the most common rectangular forms which stood crooked in various directions. They had all windows plastered on them, some of them revealing soft light spots which made them look like distorted starts. At the floor were different objects shattered around: poles which gave lights off as well, stone bricks at the size of a dragon, and huge metal bars which had also windows. The grounds before the ponies was made out of concrete itself. Dust was all over the place, like a carped drafted all over them. It made it look as if time has been frozen and caused the place to be covered by ice and snow. A real surreal picture, and it definitely wasn't what a normal temple would look like.

"Let's see, how about_ Dashpolis_? Or _Rainbowcity_? Oh, I know, I name it-"

"Oh, Rainbow Dash, could you be quiet just for one minute?", Rarity interrupted her ego speech. Dash turned to her to snap back at the white unicorn, but stopped when she saw that Twilight Sparkle looked like as if she has seen a ghost. The violet unicorn sat on her butt, her front hoofs holding her barely, and her eyes trembled in utter shock.

"Errr, you okay, Twilight?", the blue pegasus asked her, wondering if she said something wrong.

Twilight's mind went still for a moment, something really rare for an intellectual pony such as her. But if you were a pony who studied all her live in libraries to discover the most mysterious secrets of the world, you could feel like the world you believed to know was starting to fall apart. Because the scenery she saw wasn't something she hoped to witness. She hoped for some temples, with runes to decipher and curious artifacts to study, but not..._this._

"You have been right, AJ", Twilight Sparkle said aloud, but more to herself than to the pony she addressed to. "I was following nothing but a dream."

"Twilight...", started the orange pony, but couldn't finish her sentence. Now she felt guilty that she said that to the violet pony.

"All my live I studied so hard, I thought I knew everything there was to know. And now...I know nothing at all...", she sobbed softly, her face turning to the ground. The tears were forming a small puddle where the dry dirt were mixing. Everyone remained quiet, Spike hugged Twilight to give her some comfort.

"But, uhm...", Fluttershy neared the crying pony and nudged her softly with her snooze. "Maybe that's a good thing." Twilight Sparkle gave Fluttershy a glare, and the yellow pegasus meeped scared and moved backwards carefully.

"Yeah, isn't science about...errrm...proofing the otherwise?", Rarity said, trying to ease the tension.

"You mean proofing that your theory is wrong", Twilight Sparkle corrected her, her sadness being lifted a little.

"Oh, of course, that's what I mean, darling. You can apply it to your studies. All the theories are wrong, and this is solid proof! Or something..."

"Yeah, Twilight! Science is shmience, who needs that now? It's much more fun to see it all by yourself!", Pinkie Pie joined the comfort and put a hoof around the violet unicorn. Finally the violet pony felt a lot better now and smiled sheepishly at her friends.

"Thanks, guys, you are the best." She got up then and put herself in front of the others, putting a hoof into the air. "Well, what are you waiting for then? We got a secret to discover!"

And everypony, AJ included, marched towards the fallen city with laughter and euphoria. But nopony noticed that something long has been shifting deeper into the shadows of the dark cave.

* * *

"Ueegh",Rarity made a face when she watched the insides of such a mountain filled with dressed mannequins, which turned out to be a dress shop. "Look at these designs, they are soooo last century! I expected that angels had at lease some taste in fashion."

The others said nothing, too focused exploring the area they were in. Pinkie Pie looked at some worn out pictures which were scattered all over the place, some hanging at the air, some lying on the floor. She especially won interest at the ones with food on them, because that looked delicious. Fluttershy was way to scared to do something, so she just did what AJ did, namely standing around and looking at the environment with an uncertain look.

It seemed like a city or some sort. Gray streets crossed each other, its skin also gray paths, giving a geometrical ordered look despite the chaos all around. What brought Twilight Sparkles attention were those colorful little houses made out of metal which had twice the size of a pony. Some had gummy rings in the lower parts, some didn't had those rings and instead possessing big holes at one end. Broad windows were plastered all over the small roof of it. They reminded the violet unicorn of the chariots the more aristocratic ponies used for transport, but they appeared not to need any steeds to pull it.

While Rainbow Dash looked into one of those big holes, Twilight Sparkle looked into one of the windows, and gasped:

There was a skeleton inside, it's bleak claws holding something round and black. The shape of this skeleton resembled the ones of an ape, making her develop a theory subconsciously that monkeys might have descended from the angels. Or were angels monkeys to begin with?

"Errr, Twilight, didn't you said here were a temple?", Spike asked the violet pony, also looking inside the small house.

"I think I made a mistake in the translations", Twilight Sparkle replied, deep in thoughts. Then she put out her archeology tools and studied the skeleton in the inside of this house.

"Wait, so there is no temple at all?", Dash threw her question in the conversation, her head black from the ashes which were inside the holes, causing some of the ponies and Spike to giggle.

"Most likely, or I took the word temple to literally", Twilight answered, studying the size of the skull and then switching to its teeth. Everypony turned to her and frowned in confusion.

"Long ago our ancestors believed that the spirit of a passed away pony needed to be rub with ointment in order to pass to the hereafter. However, ointment was a really expensive product back then, so priests erected large temples where the dead were buried in and let the outside be consecrated with ointment."

The ponies (and dragon) didn't know what that meant, until a light shot up in Spike's head. "So wait, are you telling us this here isn't a temple but a...", he couldn't finish the question, the realization brought to much horror.

Twilight nodded her head. "Yes, it is a graveyard."

"Dammit, I knew I shouldn't come with you guys, now we will have to face _ZOMBIES_!", Spike panicked and run aimlessly while screaming "We're doomed, DOOMED!" . Fluttershy did so as well, and AJ trembled with wide eyes.

"Calm down, everypony, there's nothing here, just skeletons, see?", Twilight turned to the skull, only to see that it had eyes suddenly. And they looked at her directly. She screamed out of shock and jumped back, hugging Rarity who was near by. The skull then laughed and two blue hoofs put it off to reveal a certain pegasus.

"Oh man, you should have seen yourself! _There's nothing here, blablabla, oh by Celestria a skeleton!_", she mimicked the violet pony with the skull as if it was a hand puppet. She fell into loud laughter again, and the others joined quickly after, except one certain unicorn.

"Rainbow Dash!", Twilight seethed at her with venom. She wanted to punish the brash pony with her magic, but suddenly Pinkie Pie started shuddering all over her body.

"_Ohhh-oooooooooh_", she made while she her trembling body went up and down.

"What's wrong, Pinkie Pie?", AJ asked her concerned.

"My twitching is up again, I am shuddering all over. **_OOOOOOH-OOOOOOH_**!", the tremblings increased, everypony became alarmed, especially Spike. If Pinkie was twitching, it should be taken seriously.

"Wh-what does that mean?", Spike spluttered, and appeared as if he was wetting the floor any moment.

"Maybe AJ starting to believe in angels", Twilight Sparkle taunted the orange pony, remembering the last time when Pinkie was shuddering all over. AJ struck her tongue back at her in return.

"Nonononono, that's not it", Pinkie Pie said and looked around scared. "It's...something big, and ….something really really evil-devil. It is right near us!". Everypony started to pale, realizing they were in deep trouble. Fluttershy took it at worst and fell on her back out of panic.

"Oh no, not the _Morlocks_! Or maybe _Zombies_? **OR ZOMBIEMORLOCKS**!", Spike lost it finally and clang at Twilight's neck like there was no tomorrow. "What should we do, what should we do?"

"My twitching says we have to go in...there!", Pinkie Pie pointed at something which lead to a dark valley. The ponies did oblige and ran to the black road. They run until they crossed something big. Bigger than a dragon even.

"Errr...is dat a whale or sumthing?", AJ asked, crooking her head in wonder.

It was a giant object, the form resembling of a cross between a bird and a fish. It's long snooze stick out in the air skewed as if it was longing for air. What appeared like a lower fin holded this giant thing, added with its weird back tail which was merged with the two side flanks. Twilight lightened one side of this fish-thing and saw the letters "**BEBOP**" written on it.

"No time for asking this, get in there, everypony!", Twilight Sparkle commanded and leaded the group to an opening she sighed at the lower flank. The group galloped into it without any questions. They entered a dark room which lead to a stair case. Everypony panted heavily, hoping they were safe now. Pinkie Pie looked back and noticed that this entrance looked to be artificially build. _But where was the door then?_ Then she saw the small small rift which was all around the door and an idea came up.

"Twilight, close these door-thingies!", Pinkie Pie pleaded her sorcerer friend. Twilight raised an eyebrow and turned her gaze to the entrance, then saw the rift as well. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what was inside those rift. Then she felt something with her magic and pulled it then. Sleek sharp edges came to the surface from all directions and then they closed itself together. It was completely dark then, only the headlight Twilight Sparkle had was able to give light. All the friends remained until they heard something. It were loud stomps, each of them in a long momentum. A soft growl was heard, causing the group shudder in fear. Fluttershy was hiding under Rainbow Dash's wings again who this time didn't care much about it. The ponies and the dragon were waiting until the stomps were getting weaker and weaker until it died out. When they stopped hearing it, there was a collective sight of relieve.

"Are we...are we safe now?", Twilight Sparkle asked the pink pony, still having butterflies in her stomach.

"Maybe", came the uncertain reply.

"Maybe?", Twilight frowned at her. "Pinkie Pie, you said we would be safe here."

"No, my twitching said so! You've got to listen, Twilight!"

Twilight wanted to make a retort, but then tried to suppress a growl when she reminded herself this was Pinkie Pie she was talking to.

"Eh, whatever, let's look around", the violet pony said in resigned annoyance. All went to the stairs in order to find whatever new secrets awaited them.

* * *

"The hell is dat?", the orange pony asked aloud. The group reached what it looked like a circular road which crossed alongside them. In front of them was a small round entrance. Twilight just shrugged and all went to the other entrance.

"Interesting", she whispered. It appeared to be some kind of lounge. Two yellow couches were standing in the middle, between them a small table made out of metal. Several stairs and entrances trailed across the endings of the room, leading to different directions.

"Finally, a resting place!", Spike said happily and jumped on one of the couches. He slept in abruptly. Twilight Sparkle smiled and shook her head in sympathy. She had forgotten that Spike was still a baby dragon and needed rest.

"Resting is a good idea, actually", Rainbow Dash snapped in and occupied the other couch. "I got to catch up all the napping I missed."

The others joined soon and slept on the floor. The resting went for a few hours until Twilight Sparkle woke up and found Applejack awake. She was carrying Twilight headlights around her neck.

"You alright, AJ?", the violet unicorn asked her. Applejack blinked and turned to her.

"Ah, mornin' Twilight. Ah have jus' been explorin' dis whale-thing.", she replied, a sheepish smile on her face.

"And?", Twilight questioned her, standing rigid now.

"Can't say much. Ah found several door back there in dat big hole. And some more where the stairs go downstairs, but ah dunno how to open any of dem. But this might interest ye."

She guided Twilight through the hole, leading to a long corridor with several entrances at the sides. The only one without a door seemed to be a kitchen. At the end of the corridor was a stairway. Both went up and found themselves in a large room. Like on those small houses they found in the streets, it has windows plastered all over them. And in the middle was a large desk and other weird looking objects. One particular was a round golden chair with panels installed on it.

"What is this?", Twilight Sparkle asked and studied the weird looking things.

"Ah dunno, Twi. Ah guess mah horizon is as far as mah apple farm is not to get this.", AJ replied, a bitter chuckle leaving her voice. The violet pony blushed in shame.

"AJ, I am sorry I have said that. I didn't want to hurt your feelings.", she apologized to the orange pony.

"Ah am sorry too, Twi. If it weren't for mah bickerin' we would've had an escape out of this ponydamn cave. And ah know ah was wrong about yer intellect. Ye have been right. Ye always have been right", AJ sighed in defeat and lowered her head, blushing in shame aswel. "Can ye forgive ol' Applejack?"

Twilight neared her and stubbed her with her snooze. "Oh course I can. We are friends after all."

"Woah, what is that?", Rainbow Dash asked out loud, who flew up the stairs to the other two ponies. Pinkie Pie and Rarity joined soon after.

"I don't know, but it seems like a control panel." Twilight scouted the area and then found something she was able to make use of: a book. She opened it and read a few pages quietly. Rainbow Dash however noticed a weird looking object which resembled a surfing board.

"Hey, this is a manual. It implies this whale-thing is a ship or some sort.", Twilight informed the other ponies, absorbed in the contents of the book. "Please don't touch anything, until I can make any sense of-"  
Suddenly loud music filled the room, full guitar beats and other heavy metal music kicking in as if Scratch started her party music. A voice started singing out of nowhere:

_**Don't wanna be the one to pop your cherry, girl...**_

"WAAAH!", Rainbow Dash jumped back surprised from the button she just pushed, and landed on another one. Suddenly she flew to the air again. Only this time she didn't do it on her own. "What the-"

"Rainbow Dash, what have ye done?", Applejack shouted at the blue pegasus shocked who was also levitating in the air.

"I didn't do anything, I swear!", she tried to excuse herself panicked and started pushing buttons to undo her mistake. Suddenly lights are shooting up in the whole ship, weird light windows popping out everywhere.

"Rainbow, stop it!", Twilight Sparkle shouted at her angry, trying to walk in the air to reach her, but to no avail. The book was trying to flow away, but the violet unicorn could catch it just in time.

_**Just jump a train that will bring you back to mama's side...**_

"Hey look, I am a sea pony!", Pinkie Pie squealed and dived with swimming gestures through the rooms. "_Blub blub, blub blub, look out for the googoofish_!"

"I can't believe it!", Twilight said then, calming herself down and realizing the matter at hand. "I...I am flying! Without any wings or magic!", she disregarded her first attempt to walk and instead dived through the air like Pinkie Pie. "It is incredible!"

"Ahhh, I just wish I had my old wings back...", Rarity sighed as she looked behind her back as she floated passively, remembering how it was flying with wings.

Suddenly a huge tremor erupted within this room, making the other ponies separating from each other much more. It happened again. Somehow, they heard slamming sounds which caused even bigger eruptions.

_**Knock on, knock on, knock on the door, buyin' a one way ticket out of your mind...**_

"W-what's happening?", the ponies hear Spike scream downstairs, followed by several meeps from Fluttershy. Spike pushed a scared to death Fluttershy as if she was a statue in order to join with the rest of the group. Again a tremble erupted.

Pinkie Pie was trembling on full force once more and went zigzag on the air. "_OOOOOOHHH-NOOOOOO,_ MY TWITCHING! IT HAS FOUND US!", she yelled shocked.

Again a tremble erupted.

_**Knock on, knock on, knock on the sky**__**...**_

"Rainbow Dash, bring us down to the floor this instance!", Applejack screamed at Rainbow Dash, loosing her patience while she tried to swim to the ground again. Another slam came.

_**You keep on knockin' better ask yourself why...**_

"How am I supposed to stop this? I don't know how any of this works!", Rainbow Dash barked back annoyed and looked for more buttons to push. The next slam caused Applejack to land on another button, this time stopped the levitation and suddenly everypony land on their butt or head harshly. Twilight Sparkle didn't had so much luck and her head knocked on the bar she concluded was a cockpit. Her head was spinning and was seeing flying Rainbow Dashs and Spikes around her. Soon the next eruption made her getting back her senses and looked out of the window.

_**You keep pushin' and you will see my chilly yellow eyes...  
Only one time...**_

Suddenly from the window there were several huge eyes looking into the ponies' ones, glowing in an unholy light like golden coins. It was to dark to make out what it was, it seemed like darkness itself became alive.

"Oh no", Twilight Sparkle whispered shocked. Whatever was out there suddenly screamed in a high pitch growl, revealing its thousands of teethes, and slammed on the glass. And it slammed on it again. Suddenly the glass started to crack due the brutal force.

_**Knock on, knock on, knock on the door...  
Be happy living in your nuclear life...**_

"We have to get out of here!", Twilight Sparkle shouted to the other ponies who were regrouping themselves around her.

"Are ye crazy? We can't get out of here, whatever is out there will eat us. And yer balloon is kaputt, remember?", Applejack was shouting back nervously.

"There may be another way. This ship here could transport us out of the cave", she said back, getting in her analysis mode and studied the book she found. "But I can't get any out of it how this thing works. Does anyone know what _Autopilot_ means?". The others were looking at each other with weird looks and were trembling again out of the slamming from outside.

"Oh Twilight, you know what they say", Pinkie Pie chided in and jumped towards the cockpit. "If you don't know how to bake a cake, try without receipt!"

Twilight frowned as the pinkie pony started to sing while pulling different levels and pushing buttons randomly, her singing somehow following the rhythmic of the song.

_**Knock on the sky, you keep on knockin' better ask yourself why...**_

And, surprisingly, the ship started to hum to live, and to everypony's surprise, started to move. It took the monster outside out of surprise and it lost its halt as the ship pushed him away.

_**You keep pushin' and you will feel my frozen beastly bite...  
Only one time...**_

Pinkie Pie licked her lips out of concentration and pushed more buttons and panels, her lower hoofs tapping to the rhythm of the music. Everypony hoped the pink pony knew what she did. The monster was getting up again and wanted to tackle the ship from the behind, opening it's yap widely to bite it. However, out of the holes flared hot burning fire into it's mouth, and the insides of it was cooked alive. It fell on the ground and died instantly.

The ship sped towards the point where the ponies and the dragon landed with the balloon. As Pinkie saw the basked, she moved one panel out with full force. "Com'ooooon, do it for mommy!", she whispered to the cockpit.

_**Puuuusssshiiiing...theeeeeee...skyyyyyy...**_

And as if the music was singing about this moment, the ship moved an angle of 90 degrees flew towards the surface at incredible speed, almost matching Rainbow Dash's Sonicboom. Applejack's face became green and something vile came from her throat and filled her cheeks. She run down the stairs out of her vertigo problem. Soon the ponies saw the natural light of the sun once more as they dashed through the Everfree forest, reaching the sky.  
Everypony was shouting "We did it!" and hugged each other happily. After they calmed themselves down, they realized they fell from one problem to the other.

"Ehhh, how do we land this thing?", Spike asked, scratching his head.

"Oh, you want to land? No problemo, Spiko!", Pinkie Pie said and lowered a panel.

"Pinkie Pie, wait-!", Twilight wanted to stop her, but it was to late.

* * *

Zecora's head was sitting on her staff and was concentrating. Meditation was a real skill to be learned through many years to reach inner peace. It was like being in heaven.

Suddenly a huge eruption caused her staff to fly away and she fell on her face. Dizzy in her head, she trotted outside to see what the cause of the quake was. The zebra regained her senses quickly and widened her eyes in shock. Something really big just landed before her hut just inches away, something she has never seen before.

"Did I do that?", she asked herself, scratching her head with her hoof.

* * *

"Yay, this was fun!", Pinkie Pie squealed happily and turned to her friends who were all hugging each other and trembling all over. "Let's do that again!"

"NOOO!", they all screamed at her, causing the pink pony to fall on her back. After everypony calmed down again, they planned it was about time to go out and never talk about this ever again. As they turned to the exit they found an orange pony in front of them. Applejack's face was no longer green but pale as bleach.

"Applejack, you don't look so good", Twilight Sparkle said in a concerned voice "I can't blame you, however, since this was one hell of a ride-"

"Ah think ah have jus' seen an angel", she just said plainly, her look really unfocused.

Everyone remained silent, and wondered if Applejack was getting delusional from the flight. Then, of all ponies, Twilight Sparkle started to chuckle, followed by the chuckle of the others. Then everypony except AJ were laughing their behinds off.

"Oooh man, that was a good one! I didn't know you were such a good kidder, Applejack!", Rainbow Dash said while laughing out loud and flapping in the air.

"Ah ain't making this up",she just encountered firmly. Suddenly the laughter died slowly, and confusion spread throught the room. "There is an angel back there in those cabins.", her voice was getting weaker. "An..._angel_", she muttered before bumped to the ground softly.

"Applejack!", Twilight shot up and jumped over to her friend. She pulled her up carefully and asked: "What are you talking about?"

"He's...he's back there. Up there in this cabin", Applejack said. "Just push the red button beside the door and it'll open." The ponies did so as she told, reaching a giant round metal door in the long corridor. Rainbow Dash pushed the red button beside it, and the door rolled to the unknown, revealing its entrance. It was lit up thanks to the blue pegasus' random button smashing. The room they entered appeared to be a store chamber or some sort. Several object which looked either familiar or totally alien to them were piled up here. Then they found what stood mostly out.

It looked like a coffin, a large one, black as the darkness the ponies just escaped from. However, on the top was a green window which revealed...

"Oh...by Celestia...", Twilight Sparkle gasped, seeing the head which could be seen from the window. The face of a sleeping angel.

* * *

**end of – Tango with Charon -**

_Author's note: The lyrics are from the song "Pushing the sky" by the Seatbelts. I found it very fitting in the ship sequense, not only because RD was the one who started to play it 8P._

_And if I described the insights of the Bebop wrongly, please inform me. I was rewatching the show to make anything out of it, but to no avail. The animators didn't seem to give a decent blueprint of the ship._

_And yeah, if anyone is up betareading my things, just add it in the reviews, I will give them betaread status. If I figured out how this feature works, of course.  
_


	4. Session β:Overture of the paddock,part 1

**Session β: Overture of the paddock – part one -**

_He raised his right hand and pointed his finger to the remaining Syndicate_ _thugs. He grinned victoriously._

"_**Bang.**__"_

_He fell. But he didn't feel the impact of the stone hard stairs hitting his face. Everything went dark around him. Then the cold kicked in. It didn't matter anymore anyway. The dream was finally over. He finally found peace._

_He woke up and found himself in the same stairway he fell on again. But something was different this time. There was only the stairway; the sky, the floor before and after the stairs, everything was gone and was replaced by darkness. Looking up he realized that the number of the stairs increased, crimson carpet over it like a thread he should follow. Up there was a familiar light. He decided to go up. There weren't many options anyway. His hands in his pockets he climbed step by step, in a long endless journey of reaching the light. What felt like an eternity, he finally passed the last step and entered the light._

_He found himself in a train station; not the one he was used to, the nostalgic ones from those old western movies. It was dusk, an orange heaven spread over him, as if it was burning with the sun's fire. He walked over a smooth surfaced floor, alongside the rails which followed him like a scar. He reached a public bench, two column pillars standing beside both endings. Above it was this ad "Son of a Gun" of this Cowboy wannabe he couldn't remember his name. Only this time it was he himself who was on this ad, holding his trademark gun and grinning like an idiot. The cowboy huffed at annoyance._

"_Hey, buddy, long time no see", came the deep voice in front of him. He looked down the bench. On one seat was a green frog. It raised his one foot and made a greeting gesture and...smiled? _

"_Oh great, you again", Spike sighed and crossed his arms._

_"Yo, man, show some li'l respect, it's not my fault I was born as a frog", the green amphibian whined._

"_Yeah, yeah, whatever", Spike was fumbling all over his clothes, but couldn't find what he was looking for. "I suppose frogs don't have something to smoke, do they?"_

"_Hey, we aren't called classy for a reason." Suddenly out of nothing his left foot he had a cigarette between his fingers, his right one holding a zippo lighter. Spike took the thin cylinder and bowed closely to the frog so it could lighten the cigarette up._

_"Thanks", the bounty hunter said and took a long breath from the smoke, the cherry pop on the other end glowing in the dusky heaven._

"_So, what yer doin' here?", the green amphibian asked._

"_Waitin' for my train coming", came the reply from the human._

_"Oh, then you have just missed the last one. The next one will come much much later", it shook its head apologizing._

_"Well, then I got no choice but to wait", Spike said and sat beside the frog._

_They remained quiet for a while, both enjoying the warm weather and the scenery in front of them. Winged monkeys were flying on the sky, traveling to the north. A cold wind was breezing Spike's hairs a little, while he was smoking his cigarette._

_"So",the frog started and looked up to Spike. "You finally woke up from the dream?"_

"_Yeah, I did", the bounty hunter answered, removing the cigarette to puff in the air with smoke rings. "It was a crappy one, but still worth the time."_

"_Hell, man, I can't blame ye. I mean, who would want to dream being a lowlife bounty hunter?",the frog babbled, receiving a look from the bounty hunter. "No offense, man."_

"_None taken", Spike said calmly, and looked around. "Am I the only one here?"_

"_Yeah. There was a girl here however. A blonde one", Spike's eyes opened wide when he heard the frog's reply. "We had some really nice conversation."_

"_And? What she said?", the bounty hunter tried to remain calm.  
_

_"Oh, sorry, can't tell ye, I promised her to keep it as a secret."_

"_Huh, a frog with a code of honor", Spike grumbled and took a long breath from the smoke._

"_However, she told me if a guy with fuzzy hair should show up, I should tell him something", the frog said and eyed Spike critically. "Hey, come to think of it, it matches your profile."_

_"So, what's the message?", Spike mumbled while having his last smoke between his lips._

" **'**_**Don't wake up' **". Spike gave another look to the green amphibian._

"_What does that mean?", was his question._

"_I dunno, she entered the train immediately after saying this. Didn't even say a Goodbye to me. Women, really, nothing but trouble...", the frog sighed and shook his head._

"_I hear ye", Spike agreed._

_The conversation between them went on, grasping different topics, both of them giving their two mulons about any matter they could come up with. Then, after what also felt like an eternity, a train came. The locomotive with a smooth__ violet surface and possessing a boiler in the form of a horn , each wagon of the train had a different color with different symbols plastered on them. Spike finally took his last smoke and threw the tip of cigarette away._

"_Looks like my train has finally arrived", he said with a smoking sigh and got up._

"_Yer sure that's the right one?", the frog asked uncertain._

"_Yeah, got a feeling it's the one", Spike said, cracking his neck. The door opened and he started to enter the train. "Well, was nice knowing ye."_

"_See you then, Space Cowboy",the frog said, winking with its tiny foot. "Little advice for you, from frog to man: Confound these __**ponies,**__ they drive you to drink."_

"_Huh?",Spike looked back and wanted to go out as he realized something. But the doors shut down quickly. _

"_HEY WAIT!", the bounty hunter screamed and hit the doors panicked. But the train started to move finally._

_Damn, he took the wrong train._

_

* * *

_

He heard a voice. It was the one of a woman, the tone a really gentle one. She was humming something, something really beautiful. Spike never heard this song before, but still, really beautiful. Then, the voice stopped, and the singer seemed like placing something on a table near by. He wanted to open his eyes, but he felt so tired. He didn't want to wake up.

"_Ehmm, Twilight, are you sure it was a good idea bringing him here?He looks kinda...scary", _he heard another voice of a woman whispering softly.

"_Of course it's alright_",the more confident sounding voice replied. It switched then to an worn up giggle. "_Oh my god, this is so exciting, a real life angel! This is much better than I hoped for!_"

What, angel? Did she meant him? Oh, the irony.

"_But he doesn't look like one_", a voice of another woman commented, this one was raspy. "_I mean, aren't angels supposed to have...I dunno, wings?_"

No shit, Wattson.

"_Appearance can be deceiving. We can ask him all this once he regains full consciousness_", replied the confident voice.

God, couldn't these chicks be quiet? All their voices were ringing like bells in his head.

"_So, how d'we know when he wakes up?_", another female voice with a redneck accent asked.

"_He was put under cyrogenic freeze as far as I figured out. It is some sort of artificial coma. But if I have done it right, he should be up in an hour or so._", the confident voice was replying.

Huh, this explained why he felt like crap.

"_Now, where is this dragon? I got to report this to Princess Celestia immediatly! This is the discovery of a century!_" The voice of this confident smug girl was getting on his nerves already. "_Spike? Spiiike? Where are you, Spike?_"

"I'm right here, dammit", Spike grumbled. "Can't you give a man his beauty sleep?"

A round of shocked gasps were triggered by his surprising answer, but he didn't care. Damn, women were nothing but trouble, that frog was right. He hated when frogs were right. He still kept his eyes closed as he got up, raised his arms, and yawned like a lazy lion.

"He's...he's awake already!", the one redneck voice shouted aloud.

"Morning to you too, sunshine", Spike shot back absently, his throat strained like dried beef. The voices were whispering around him in an uncertain way, as if they didn't know how to handle the situation. Damn, what has gotten into them? Never seen a man before?

The bounty hunter started feeling his bare chest as he scratched it, breathing in and out. The he felt his legs and the fabric of baggy pants over them. He cross-legged and pushed with his right arm his head to receive a satisfying CRACK from his neck, his eyes still closed from his exhaustion.

"Uhhh...how are you feeling?", the confident sounding voice asked, a hint of fear was detected by Spike.

"Like being in a bad dream you can't wake up from. The usual", the bounty hunter replied calmly. "So how long have I been out cold?"

Another round of whispers. _Boy, they sure do talk a lot,_ he thought. The confident voice said again: "Well, we can't say for sure, but-"

"Whatever, sorry I asked", Spike interrupted her abruptly, annoyed by all this girly gushing. He fumbled on his trousers to look for a pack of smokes, but to no avail. "Say, you don't have any cigarettes around, do you?"

"What's a cigarette?", a high pitch voice of a girl asked. Spike blinked mentally. _Okay_, the bounty hunter concluded, _where I landed is not up with current modern times._

He sighed and opened his eyes slightly to make a sarcastic retort. But then he stopped. His eyes opened wide, noticing what was before him.

He saw ponies; ponies everywhere,each of them in different colors. He looked around carefully. It were six totally. Two of them had wings, the other two had horns on their head.

He took an extra notion of the one nearest of him. This was a violet pony...or unicorn? Anyway, this one was breathing hysterically, from the tone he concluded this was the one with the smug confident voice. Wait, this could talk?

He eyed her with half close eyes then and remained silent. Then suddenly, he grabbed her snooze and opened it forcefully, causing the pony to gasp at surprise.

"He-hey, wha' a' ye' 'oing?", the pony asked shocked. Spike said nothing and looked inside the yap. It didn't resembled the anatomy he knew from a normal horse. It even had an uvula at the end, just like a human.

"Eh", he groaned and let go of the pony's yap. He gave her his cold shoulder then and lied back to the bed, eyes closed again. "I must be still under drugs or something."

"How rude!" The confident pony lost her coolness and rambled angrily: "What does he think he is?"

"Ehm", the more softer voice tried to answer shyly. "I think he thinks we aren't real."

"'Course you ain't real", the bounty hunter chuckled humorlessly. "I mean, talking horses; seriously? I'd rather hit a cold shower than to argue with you critters right now." Spike then tried to get sleep again. Once he had clear senses again, he could then figure out where he was.

"Well...if ye say so", the redneck voice replied uncertainly. "Rainbow Dash, would ye?"

"His wish is granted!", the raspy voice answered proudly and Spike heard a dashing in the air.

_Wait, what?_

Then he felt ice cold water pouring down him, knocking his senses back to reality.

"WAAH!", he screamed and jumped up out startled. "That was a figure of speech, you stupid..."

He stopped and looked down. They were still here, those...

"...Ponies?", he finished the sentence, his mind not processing what was before him. Even with sharp senses, he still couldn't believe it. He must have been still dreaming, there was no other way. He took notion of the surrounding then:

Spike was in some sort of wooden house. Wait, the house seemed to be a tree itself! He was standing in the highest floor of this tree, because he saw stair leading downstairs. The bounty hunter saw several decorations like a cuckoo clock, but that wasn't worth the attention. But what he noticed was the huge number of bookshelves on the walls which stored a alot of books, making it appear to be a library or something. He turned to his bed and saw a white cloud floating before him. On it sat a blue and winged pony whose tail and mane had rainbow colors. Behind her was a window shut by yellow curtains.

"Ehehe, hi", the blue flying horse said, nervously chuckling. It was the one with the raspy voice. Spike gave her a blank stare. Then he pushed her to the side roughly, causing the pony to shout "WOAH",removed the curtains and looked outside the window.

"What the hell?", Spike yelled. He saw a small village, the kind of rustic village where you would take a vacation if you had enough of your job and family. But there were no humans outside. There were ponies, everywhere just sponies! Flying ponies, normally trotting ponies, chatting ponies, his whole view was filled with ponies. This wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare!

"Look, I know you may be confused right now, Mr. Angel", the violet pony said to the horrified bounty hunter. "So please, let me explain-"

"You there, the yellow one with the wings", Spike interrupted her and pointed a finger at said pony.

"M-me?", the yellow pegasus meeped, revealed herself to be the one with the soft shy voice, and hid her snooze between her mane.

"Yeah, you, come over here", Spike said annoyed. The pegasus looked uncertain at the others and crawled towards the bounty hunter. She was barely half as big as Spike. He frowned down her, but then held his hand before her.

"Bite my hand", he commanded.

"Wh-What?", she stuttered, her face turning pale at this order.

"I need to make sure I am not dreaming. Go on, bite it", the bounty hunter urged her, getting impatient.

"I-I don't now if I...", she was to terrified to continue and hid her snooze deeper between her mane.

"Don't worry Fluttershy, you can count on me!", the pink pony said, who had this high pitched voice. She jumped between the two of them, and bit into the bounty hunter's hand deeply.

**"YOUCH**!", Spike screamed out of pain, getting tears in his eyes. He withdrew his hand and railed against her. "Not so hard, dammit!"

"Hm, tastes like hotdogs", the pink one ignored him and licked her lips, probably enjoying having bitten him.

"You...you things are real!", Spike realized as he stared at his bitten hand wide eyed, and made a terrified glare at the ponies. "Wh-what are you?"

"Eh-hm", Twilight Sparkle coughed slightly and neared before the panicked bounty hunter to introduce herself: "I'm Twilight Sparkle and this is-"

"Answer my question, dammit!", Spike snarled, grabbed her instantly, and hold her close. Rapid wild brown eyes were meeting shocked violet ones. "What the hell are you? Where am I? Why have you brought me here?"

"I...I...", Twilight Sparkle stuttered, her careful manners forgotten and feeling the tension rising in the room. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to bring him here after all.

"ANSWER ME!", he roared at her and shook her brutally.

"Hey, let go of her, you jerk!", Rainbow Dash yelled and dashed to the enraged Spike to free her friend. But Spike avoided the attack, headbutted the pegasus to the other side of the room, and threw Twilight Sparkle like a spear towards her out of instincts. The other ponies were gasping and wanted to save Twilight and Rainbow from the abuser. The bounty hunter took the chance to jump over them and sprinted down the stair. The ponies were surprised, but continued to reach their wounded friends. Pinkie Pie however stopped as something was twitching. She followed Spike who was trying to reach the door.  
"WAIT!", Pinkie Pie shouted at him, causing Spike to turn to her shocked.

"Get away from me, you freaks!", he threatened and made a fighting pose.

"Look out for -!", before Pinkie Pie couldn't finish the warning, the door opened widely and smashed the thrown off bounty hunter to the sides. "-the door."

"Say, I heard screaming. Is everything alright?", the purple dragon asked concerned. Pinkie Pie pointed at something behind him. Spike turned and saw that he knocked the angel out cold. "Oh, sorry."

* * *

**End of Overture of the paddock – part one -**


	5. Session β:Overture of the paddock,part 2

Session β: Overture of the paddock - part 2 -

* * *

Spike regained conscious as the black dizziness was cleared in his head.

Man, he had some really weird dream. He was in some sort of tree and was surrounded by colorful ponies which could talk...

The bounty hunter stopped his stream of conscious as he noticed that he sat on a chair in a real unconformable pose, his arms sticking tightly around his body like the wings on a bird. He wanted to open them wide, but felt restrained. He opened his eyes and took a look over his body. He was tied up, and the knots were really tight. He darted his free head around and found himself what seemed to be a cellar. No windows were here, just candles lit up on several places. Then he saw _them. _Their backs were turned to the bounty hunter and they whispered nervously.

_Oh right, it wasn't a dream, _he figured solemnly.

"That's what I call real hospitality", Spike shouted to them, causing them to jump up at surprise. "What next, electroshock for breakfast? I didn't expect that from ponies, you really surprise me."

"Look who's talkin'!", the orange colored pony with a cowboy hat – C_ute, _added Spike mentally- turned to him and gave him an angry glare. "Ye should apologize for what ye did to Twilight and Rainbow, angel or not!"

A violet hoof shot in front of her face to make her silent. Twilight Sparkle moved towards Spike closely and revealed herself carrying several bandages over her body. The bounty hunter felt some guilt clutching in his stomach. He realized that he maybe overreacted and the one who actually wanted to show sympathy to him was attacked by none other than him. But apologizing was out of the question; that wasn't his style.

"I am sorry that we tied you up", the violet pony apologized, pretending her abuse didn't happen. "But we didn't want to risk that you hurt yourself, Mr. Angel-"

"Stop calling me that", the bounty hunter interrupted her once more, getting sick of her eloquent nature. "The name's Spike. Spike Spiegel. Now, could you just tell me what is going on here?" Again there were flustering between the ponies, and Twilight was blinking at him astonished. This reaction made him curious, but he shrugged it off for later.

"Well, _Spike", _Twilight started, tasting the latter word like it was a bonbon curling through her mouth._ "_We found you inside what we believe is a ship which saved us from a really nasty monster. You have been put under cryogenic freeze, but as you can see, we managed to bring you back to the living."

Spike absorbed the information he received and pondered about the last thing he could remember. He remembered fighting Vicious, being on the verge of dying. He managed to kill him, and lost consciousness as he witnessed several Syndicate thugs surrounding him. Then he woke up here, in that treehouse. And met _them._

Come to think of it, he realized that he didn't felt any injuries he got from guns and Vicious' katana. Spike crooked his head over his chest to look for special wounds. Nope, no wounds at all, all healed and replaced by pale scars. So this violet unicorn dwarf was telling the truth, he was put under cryogenic freeze. He had experience with this before, after he _died_ for the first time by leaving the Syndicate. Some faint memories were left as he was put to consciousness again to replace his damaged right eye with an artificial one. Good times.

Now the question was, who put him to sleep rather than letting him die. It would've been the Syndicate, after all, the scumbags needed a new leader for their organization, and Spike seemed to be the only one who had definite legitimacy. But...

"You said you found me in a ship. Were the letters "BEBOP" written on it?", the bounty hunter asked the pony sceptically, showing no gratitude to her for waking him up at all.

"Err, yeah, it does, I remember", Twilight answered with a nod, a smile forming on her snooze.

Alright, so it were Jet and probably Faye who put him under coma. Spike was somewhat perplexed why they did so, since cryogenic freeze was a real expensive and somewhat risking method. One tiny mistake and he could have become a new frozen bag of dead weight. But maybe he was a real wreck when they rescued him._ Which leaves to another question..._

"Was I the only one on this ship?", Spike asked again. His neutral way of asking made him look like he was having an interrogation with Twilight, causing the situation between victim and caretaker to look grotesque.

"Yes, you were, we didn't found anything else. ", the pony answered nonchalantly. The bounty hunter made a frown.

"Are you sure about this?", he urged further on.

"Yes, aren't you listening?", Twilight said, becoming a tad inpatient but trying to repress this. "We found the ship in a really deep abyss where we discovered ancient ruins of an unknown former civilization. We were attacked suddenly,so we used the ship as escape back to the surface."

Spike remained quiet. Alright, so probably Jet screwed up with flying and they landed in an alternate dimension. This was the risk of using Astral Gates after all: If they got damaged,closed down, or worse , blew up, the routes would get unstable between the gates and it could cause any ship falling into some other undiscovered reality you probably would never escape again. This actually did mattered to the bounty hunter less than his worries about Jet and Faye. Both were probably out there in this world filled with talking critters and turned insane by this or something. Or they were lost in this abyss this pony talked about and were attacked by that monster.

Spike nodded and asked: "Okay, where is the ship now?"

"We left it back in the Everfree Forest near one of our friend's home. It isn't far from here.", Twilight replied to him.

"Bring me to it", the bounty hunter demanded her, receiving blinks from the other ponies he saw barely in the dark room. "I need to look for my...fellow species."

"You can't", the violet unicorn looked at him sadly and looked away. She looked as if she...pitied him?

The bounty hunter gave her an amused smirk. "And why is that?", he played along.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Because there isn't anypony left", came the reply.

Spike laughed, his voice still raspy, and crooked his head as he shot back: "The hell you are talking about?"

"Spike, you...", Twilight Sparkle stopped herself and looked back to her friends unsure. Spike could make out that the others looked uncertain as well. But then the orange parody of a cowboy nodded determined, causing the other ponies to follow her reaction; all except for the yellow one, this looked like she could wet the floor any minute. Twilight Sparkle's head turned to him and gave him an apologizing look.

"I don't want to be the one telling you this, believe me, but it seems you leave me no choice."

Spike crooked an eyebrow at her way of talking, but remained quiet.

The violet pony sighed and took a long breath before she said: "You are the last of your kind."

The smirk fell on his lips. Suddenly his eyes blazed like lit up gasoline and a snarl crossed his face.

"WHAT?", he roared at her, loosing all patience with those animals. "WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THAT? IF YOU WANT TO FUCK WITH ME, USE YOUR GODDAMN HORN AT LEAST!"

The violet pony fell on her butt, shocked by his outburst and insults. This was to be expected from a logical approach of course, but it was the last reaction she hoped to receive from him. Spike was getting sick of them and tried to free himself with brutal force,causing the chair he sat on to shake on it's edge, but to no avail. However made those knots was really good, for something which had just hoofs.

The other ponies cornered the other end of the cellar and moved closer together,all hiding behind Applejack's back, scared by the bounty hunter.

"You have been sleeping for thousands of years,Spike", Twilight Sparkle tried calm him down with more facts, before things went further out of hoofs. "Besides you, there is nopony left. They are all gone."

As Spike heard this his rage cooled down and he slowed the attempts to free himself. This hit Spike deeply, or Twilight Sparkle could conclude as his eyes shot wide open and looked blankly in the space. She wondered what he was pondering now.

"You are lying...", he muttered barely, but loud enough for the violet pony. "I don't believe any of this..."

"Why should I lie to you?", Twilight encountered him with sympathy. She felt bad telling him this, but it head to be done. "I'm sorry about this,Spike."

The bounty hunter remained quiet and was unmoving like a stone. His fuzzy hair covered his face as if he wanted to shut everyone out from his mind. Twilight's friends regained their confidence back to move closer to their pony friend.

"Your name is Twilight Sparkle, right?", the bounty hunter looked up to her, his eyes unreadable. The violet pony looked at him curiously and then nodded slowly. Spike then smiled for the first time he woke up, a real soft smile which made gave him a serene look.

"Cute name, reminds me of that really cheesy romance novel.", he chuckled, the ponies not getting the reference, but were even more crept up by his sudden calmness.

"Can you untie me, Twilight Sparkle?", Spike asked her, his smile so mischievous that it almost resembled a devil's grin. Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but blush for unknown reasons and turned away from his gaze. She knew he wasn't evil, but his former actions has made her conscious know not to do what he asked for.

"I, I am not sure...", she admitted honestly, receiving a shocked look from everypony. "You won't attack us again, will you?",

"Of course I won't. Now, be a good little mare and untie me...please?", his pleading made him almost look as pitifully as a caged lion.

"Well...", she turned to her friends with a help needing look. They weren't sure what to do either. Twilight pondered about it. Maybe he was getting his senses back, so this didn't make him a threat anymore.

"Alright then...", everypony gasped at Twilight Sparkle as her good spirited side got the better of her. She neared him and used her magic to release the bounds, receiving a look of surprise of Spike who never saw magic before. Her friends wanted to persuade her not to release him, but it was too late:

Before she was barely able to release him, the bounty hunter swooped her to the floor with a low kick and tied her hoofs together with the same rope at an incredible speed.

"TWILIGHT!", the other ponies screamed and run to her for help. _Not again_, Applejack thought annoyed.

"Think twice!", the bounty hunter laughed, pushed the tied up Twilight like a bowling bowl to the running group. Her body hit them and the ponies tripped all over, forming a small pyramid. "Bullzeye!"

Dizzy and only her head uncovered from the pony pyramid, Twilight saw upside down that Spike took the chance to run up the stairs.

"Spike, wait!", she shot up at him pleading.

"Sorry,I got to catch my next flight! See you, horsies!", he waved her at them with two finger matched up and grinned victoriously as he run out.

"_Horsies_?", a muffed voice came out of the pony build pyramid. Then suddenly, everypony were thrown up in the air by a sudden force. Applejack was standing rigid, her jade eyes glowing an angry blaze. "That does it, now ah am really mad."

"Yes,indeed, my dear Applejack", Rarity got herself up and joined her orange friend. "_It. Is. On._"

* * *

Spike made sure not to be smashed by the door again. Instead he sprung out the next window which was standing open. Which was on the second floor of the tree house. He made a barrel roll as he landed on the earthy ground and kneed once he regained halt again. He was covering his eyes from the bright sun which hurt his little lookout holes like tiny needles. As his iris got used to the new light, the bounty hunter took notion of his new surrounding. There were more ponies surrounding him, the same he saw from the window before. But this time they were all quiet and stared at him as if he was the grim reaper. Some even tried to hid their little foals behind their back defensively. The one standing out was the gray pegasus pony which had her eyes in opposite directions, looking rather confused why everypo-body were so scared.

"Errrr...", Spike rubbed the back of his head uncertain, gaining even the attention of the mental handicapped one. " Do you know which way leads to the Everfree Forest?" All of the ponies raised their hoofs and pointed to the same direction, the gray cross-eyed pegasus pointing the opposite one. They were still looking dumbfounded at him.

"Thank you kindly", he smirked and bowed his head slightly. As he was running a few meters past the petrified ponies, he heard a loud slamming behind him. He turned his head back to make the source of the sound out. It was that cowboy pony coming out of the tree house, looking really pissed. _Oh you got to be kidding me..._

"LISTEN UP, EVERYPONY!", she shouted to her fellow species. "IT'S **ANGEL SEASON**! WHOEVER CATCHES THIS ANGEL DEAD OR ALIVE WILL GET A WHOLE YEAR LIVE STOCK OF MAH APPLES FOR **FREE**!"

"Crap", Spike muttered as he sprinted for his life, away from the swarm of ponies suddenly hunting after him.

* * *

Spike hid himself behind a tree and breathed heavily. The bounty hunter wasn't in full control of his body yet thanks to his cryostasis beauty sleep. Actually that he got so reckless would have threaten his nerves to get damaged beyond healing. But he didn't care, he just wanted to get away from _them._ For ten minutes he was escaping from all those ponies, making his escape look like the old Benny Hill scenes. The worst thing was that he was in definite disadvantage. He was human, meaning he could only sprint as long as his metabolism could handle it. His experience with horses taught him that they could run forever if they wanted to. He started feeling dizzy and objects around him became blurry slightly. But Spike remained quiet as he heard hoof steps behind him. He cracked his head and saw two ponies, one green with a horn and a soft pink one with a bi-colored mane.

"Are you sure he went that way?", the pink one said in a really annoying voice he knew from old stuck up teachers.

"Definitely, I saw him running past the bakery", the green one said in a more fresh voice, a mischievous grin plastering her snooze. "Once we got him, we can finally eat something which isn't made of fat."

"Lyra, what are you saying?", the one with the bi-colored mane gave her a petrified glare. "Don't you like what I cook for you?"

"No, Bonbon, it's just-", Lyra stopped herself, pondering about what to say. "Errr..."

"Go on, tell me", Bonbon said, having her eyes closed and snooze shooting up in dignity. "I can take it."

Lyra looked away uncertainly, but then looked determined towards Bonbon.

"I AM SICK OF IT!", she screamed, throwing the bi-colored maned pony out of her shallow act. "I want to have some normal meal now and then, not fat filled muffins all night! What Is it with you lately feeding me with all this crap?

"But, but...", tears formed Bonbon's eyes, hit deeply by the truth "...I did it because I love you..."

"Please, this looks like attempted murder! Do you want to kill me with diabetes?"

They started screaming at each others with tears streaming out of their eyes like two fountains. Spike took the chance to get past them, continuing his way to the Everfree Forest._ Now there are lesbian ponies?,_ he thought irritated.

This was surreal, way to surreal even for a dead dreamer like him. Flying indestructible clowns and mutated lobster were one thing, but this is a step beyond screwed up.

Spike was the last of his kind? Everything replaced with talking ponies? Pah, he felt like being in a "Planet of the Apes" rip-off, just with equines. They thought he was an angel, so maybe they confused things with their own superstition. He couldn't be the last human. The others may be out there and needed to be rescued.

Spike knew his reactions may be unreasonable. Jet would've maybe sit with _them _ and negotiate with _them _and become friends with _them_, like the two-gooder he was; but Spike wasn't Jet, this wasn't how he ticked, especially around talking animals.

All what mattered to him now was getting to the Bebop, going to that abyss, and looking for Jet and Faye. Once done, he wanted to get out of this planet. He'd rather starve in space than to live in that nightmare any longer.

As he run past the lots of apple trees which went on like an endless river, his forehead sweating like he had fever and clutching his sides as pain started kicking in, he found a small cottage which had a rustic garden. Behind it were trees hovering in the air, giving an unholy flare. _Looks like the Everfree Forest, _he concluded.

Before he could enter the garden to get into the forest, a trail of a rainbow dashed past him, causing him to jump up.

"You won't get past me, Spike Spiegel!" It was the blue pegasus pony with the rainbow mane who knocked him to reality with a rain cloud. She stood before him and looked furiously, stomping the earth with one hoof like a bull. Spike noticed that she has a deeper blue eye and some bandages around her torso, concluding she wanted retribution for her abuse from him.

"Hey feather head, flock off, would you?", he pleaded with fast and shallow breathing. He had no time for this, as his senses started to shift more and more.

"Don't call me that! I am Rainbow Dash, the fastest pony in Equestria!", the pony sneered at him, ignoring the bad shape he was in. She bragged on: "And I can catch you in 10 seconds flat!"

"Please, you couldn't catch a fly with your '_Dashing'_ ", he stated nonchalantly, making it sound more like a fact than a taunt.

"SHUT UP!", the blue pegasus screeched and flew to him in the speed of light to kick him, hard. But the bounty hunter stepped sidewards and missed the attack by an inch.

Spike grabbed his head as he felt pain shooting through it. "Could you just be quiet? You all give me an head ache."

Rainbow Dash looked at him dumbfounded, but then regained focus again and attacked him once more. He sidestepped again. Their battle went on like this for the next 8 seconds until Rainbow Dash lost all her concentration in her fury and charged at him like an enraged bull towards Spike. But instead hitting him, he avoided her strike and she landed in Fluttershy's chicken house with a loud "CRASH" instead. Chicken run and flew out shocked, feathers rustling in the air. Spike took a break from running and avoiding attack by entering the little hut. He found the rainbow pony in a corner, her main full of hay, feathers and broken eggs. The eggs looked like they cooked to omelets in her hot brooding anger.

"You failed in 10 seconds flat, that's for sure.", he looked down to her, scratching his head thoughtfully.

"Shut up", the blue pegasus muttered before she passed out.

* * *

"God damn you, Jet", Spike panted as he pressed on.

He was pushing his last adrenalin resources before reaching collapse as he sprinted through the dark Everfree forest. Animals and other dark creatures witnessed his fight and watched him run, confused and scared about this unknown species. But Spike wasn't aware of him. More and more things became blurry around him and realized that his legs became heavy like cement. _Why of all things have you put me in cryostat? Couldn't have bandages and painkillers been enough? _

His road before him appeared to develop new dimensions, becoming like an IMAX movie while wearing 3D glasses. _For fucks sake, get a hold of yourself, Spiegel! , _he tried to punch himself inwardly. _Just a few steps and you're soon on-_

He reached a small mysterious looking hut, looking way different from the other ones in that rustic village. Behind it lay the Bebop. His twitching and half closed eyes opened wide at it.

He didn't like what he saw.

* * *

"He is going back to his ship, we got to stop him!", Twilight shouted, leading the small group of ponies to Zecora's house. They heard a crashing nearby Fluttershy's home and found Rainbow Dash knocked out unconscious. Fluttershy stayed to nurse the pegasus pony and collect the run out chicken. Only Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and her were left to stop this madness.

"Why are ye worried about him so much, Twilight? Dat guy is a jerk, just leave him with dat ship!", Applejack asked, crooking an eyebrow to Twilight.

"But that _jerk_ is the last angel ever in existence, the last angel we found! We got a responsibility to look for him.", the violet unicorn defended him, looking up with a frown.

"Errr, what?", Applejack was perplexed by this explanation "No offence, Twi, but ah think ye take this a teenie-bitie waaaaaay to personal."

"I do not!", Twilight glared at him. Their bickering continued until they reached Zecora's hut. And found Spike, the angel one.

His back was turned to them, but as he heard their galloping, he spun around fast, his eyes blazing up like a volcano.

"**WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU STUPID HORSES DONE WITH MY SHIP!** ", he screamed at them, and pointed at the Bebop with a trembling hand. "**IT'S TOTALLY WRECKED! NOW I CAN'T GET OUT OF THIS DAMN PLANET! GODDAMMIT!**"

The ponies lost all confidence suddenly and blanched at his rising temper, especially Pinkie Pie. The pink pony realized by now how bad the ship took the landing: All glasses shattered, huge holes and dents everywhere, and those wings things were ripped off. Black smoke was still leaving the ship from all endings.

"Oh-oh...", she muttered, and hid behind Applejack's back. The bounty hunter was cracking his fists as he slurred to them with his last might, causing the ponies to go backwards in fright. He wasn't an animal abuser and his sightings became so bad that he saw the triple of them, but they all crossed a line.

"If I get my hands on you, I-", he couldn't finish his sentence, since he felt a huge brick of wood hitting against his back of the head which knocked him out for good.

"Thanks, Zecora.", Twilight sighed as she saw their zebra friend showing herself, a sage staff holding in one hoof.

"You are quite welcome, my dear friend Twilight", the zebra said in a foreign accent. She nudged the passed out bounty hunter with her staff slightly. "I got enough of this angel's spite."

* * *

"How is he, Nurse White?", Twilight Sparkle asked the health specialist of Pony Ville. The ponies carried the passed out angel back to the village again and put him on a bed Twilight installed in her cellar. Her friends went to repair Fluttershy's chicken hut while the yellow pegasus brought the passed out Rainbow to her cloud castle, leaving her alone with _him. _In all his brutish behavior he looked really serene as he slept, breathing weakly as his naked chest rose up and down slowly. Twilight couldn't help but smile, despite what has happened today.

The violet pony realized then how sickly he looked, even after he broke out, and called in Nurse White to make a health check on him.

"Well...", the white nurse pony gave her a concerned look, then returned her gaze towards the bedded angel whose wrists were bound by manacles. "He's got really low blood pressure and high body temperature, but that's all I can say for now. I'd have to do a whole examination of his internal organs, but I don't have the right tools in current possession. So far, he only seems to have caught a cold, unusual for this time period."

"Thank goodness", Twilight Sparkle breathed relieved. "So he will be alright."

"Yes, just give him a lot to drink and don't let him run outside too much, and he will regain his health soon", the white nurse shook her head. "Funny, I never thought angels could get sick."

"Me neither, Nurse", the violet pony said and looked over to Spike. "I didn't expect any angel would be like this."

Both ponies jumped up as the angel sneezed loudly in response.

"Gesundheit?"

* * *

Spike regained conscious again three days later. To Twilight's surprise, he remained quiet, and seemed to ignore her. He just looked away as she talked to him and did neither drink nor eat what the violet pony brought him, much to her irritation.

When evening came, she asked her friends to come over to convince him to stop his silent protest. Somepony were against by this idea, having enough of _him_, but came for Twilight's sake.

"Look, we are sorry for what happened to your ship, Spike.", Twilight insisted, her friends in a distance of ten hoofs.

"I'm not", Rainbow Dash muttered, audible to the bounty hunter. Despite the bandages over one of her wings she seemed to have recovered fully from both encounters with Spike.

"Pssht!", Applejack put a hoof before her mouth and fizzed to the blue pegasus.

"What? If it weren't for the ship, we might have been all eaten, including _him."_

_Oh great, here we go again. _Spike thought bitterly. _Chick's talk, never ending._ He decided moping didn't seem to work any longer, and switched to talking, as long as this stopped them chatter like the critters they were.

The bounty hunter craned his neck to the ponies again and started:

"Look, what do you want to do with me now? Sacrifice me to your god or something? What's the point keeping me here?"

Twilight Sparkle smiled as he talked again and explained him: "Like I said before, you are the last of your kind, that makes you an endangered species we got to protect."

"Oh please", Spike huffed and rolled his eyes. "Have you ever considered that there may be other of my kind out there, probably not being aware of your stupid planet? We have colonies all over the hyperspace, Mars, Venus, all those Jupiter Moons, you name it."

The bounty hunter was sure where ever he landed on, those planets he mentioned were on the far end corners of the universe or left in his reality, but he just wanted to impress them with unknown names.

"Then how comes we never saw any activity from those planets? We have astrologists to watch out for falling meteors in the skies, and there hasn't been any trace of flying ships or anything the like for centuries.", the violet unicorn encountered with a solid argument. Spike blinked surprised.

So those planets were nearby? That was weird...

"Well", he cleared his throat as he realized that he was out of arguments. "Maybe they really blew themselves up. Big deal, it's nothing new with us. But com'on, there still have to be some of them out there, probably sitting on some lone star and being bored to hell I'm sure."

"Spike", Twilight frowned and shook her head vehemently. "There has been no angel since thousands of years. What else can I say? We thought you all were just fiction, until we have found you. And you have been sleeping for that long."

"How do you know for sure? Looked for gray hair on me?", he asked and grinned at her sarcastically.

"That coffin of yours said so", she replied. A transparent violet cloud appeared around her horn. Then suddenly, Spike couldn't believe it like everything else, a coffin appeared before him.

"How did you do that?", he asked meekly, staring at her dumbfounded.

"With magic", she answered sighing. She pushed on the interface of said coffin from where a mechanic voice shot up.

"_Year of entering cryostasis: 2072 AD._

_Date of exiting cryostasis: 3978 AD_

_Approximate calculation of stasis process: 1906 years_"

Spike's eyes shot wide open, realizing that this was the vessel he has been put into. But then he remembered something, and calmed himself down.

"That thing must be broken. The guy who put me in there always uses junk.", he just countered, his voice not baring his inner fears.

"Well, it's not!", Twilight shot at him, getting impatient at his ridiculous defense. "Or how else do you explain that you were still alive in a broken device which has kept you frozen under -50 degree C?"

"I dunno,just bad luck? Death doesn't seem to like me really", he shrugged and chuckled with a goofy grin.

"Uegh, I give up!", Twilight grind her teeth and seethed irritated. She spun around and left the bed bound bounty hunter and her friends, going up the stairs.

"Goodnight,_ hun_", Spike shouted to her victoriously. He noticed the other critters didn't move an inch and darted his brown eyes to them. He received angry and disappointed looks in all variety. "What? You ponies seriously believe her?"

"Twilight Sparkle was always right when it came to her studies.", the pink one tried to reason, probably the only one left without having a grudge against him. "Without her, we wouldn't have found you at all."

Spike sighed. Damn, those animals were more simple minded than he expected instincts packed creatures to be.

"Well, there you have it, folks: You should never take an egghead seriously,especially if it's a horse. Give it a saddle for riding it, don't give it a book for science."

"WHY YOU!", the blue pegasus lost all her inhibitions and wanted to beat the crap out of the bounty hunter for insulting them, especially Twilight. However, she was stopped by Applejack who snatched the rainbow pony's tail just in time.

"Let's go girls, there is nothing else to do here" , the orange pony with a solemn stare, and went up stairs as well, followed by the others.

"I expected angels to be nice and all, not to be a meanie like _him_", Pinkie Pie grouched angrily, now having a grudge against Spike as well.

"If only we never went to dat ponydamn hole, we wouldn't have to deal with this moron", Applejack sighed in disappointment.

"It can't be helped, dear. It's just bad luck, like he said. Maybe the angels put _him_ in that coffin because they got sick of _him_ and he was left forgotten.", Rarity joined the badmouthing, huffing at this.

"Yeah, who would want someone like _him_ around? Jerk!", was all Rainbow Dash could come up with, shouting the last word down the stairs.

"Hey, don't talk like if I wasn't here!", the bounty hunter complained annoyed.

"That's what you deserve, meanie!", he saw Pinkie Pie's head then as she stuck her tongue out. "Hey, Fluttershy, you coming?" Fluttershy was the only one left who hasn't moved an inch since she came here.

"Ehm, yeah!", she said meakly. Pinkie nodded and left the cellar. Once gone, the yellow pegasus neared the angel with trepidation. The bounty hunter looked away from her and wasn't away of her.

"Ehm, Spike?", she mumbled as she was near his bed. "I am just wondering..."

Spike blinked and looked to Fluttershy.

"What is it? Throwing your crap at me as well?", he sighed.

"No, it's just...", she pondered carefully how to continue. "Why can we communicate each other so well?"

"What?", Spike crooked an eyebrow confused.

"I- I mean how can we both speak the same language if we are two different species from different time periods? It just makes me wonder...", Fluttershy saw his dumbstruck stare at her, reconsidering if she formulated her question right.

"Ehm, good night then", she decided to leave and flew up stairs with her wings, leaving the bounty hunter as he was alone in the cellar, having the same look on his face.

"Son of a...", he muttered, the scales fell from his eyes. There was one thing which didn't came to him in mind to ask.

_HOW THE HELL COULD THEY ALL SPEAK ENGLISH?_

_

* * *

_

Fluttershy was about to leave the library, but stopped as she heard Twilight roaring upstairs.

"He is more stubborn than a mule. And this insults all mules!", the violet unicorn shouted.

"Give him time, Twilight", she heard Spike then trying to calm her down. "Do you really think he just accepts everything you say?" The purple dragon was left out in all this much to his relief, and even managed to avoid helping Twilight nursing the angel with the perfect excuse: 'Avoiding label confusion', or so he argument.

"He is supposed to!", Twilight shot at him, pacing forth and back in irritation. "I am presenting him real factual...facts which are easier to grasp than a parasprite, proving the truth! And what does he do? He mocks me...this angel mocks me!". Suddenly, her mane started to burn as if she caught fire and her turned white as bones. "**I won't let him mock me****!**"

"Errr, Twilight?", Twilight turned to Fluttershy angrily who came up to her and Spike. Despite in all unicorn's blazing fury, the yellow pegasus was showing some confidence which was rare for her. "Do you remember the time we had to deal with the dragon sleeping in the mountain?"

As Twilight processed the question, she calmed herself down, fire mane and bone colored skin gone at once.

"Of course I do,Fluttershy, why do you ask?", she asked, crooking an eyebrow.

"I think it's the same problem with Spike here", Fluttershy answered, flapping her wings carefully.

"Ehm well...", the purple dragon coughed emberrassed. "I'm a dragon too, after all..."

"Not you, Spike", Fluttershy chuckled softly at the confusion. "I mean the angel."

"What?", Twilight Sparkle looked at her as if she was telling a bad joke. "Fluttershy, how can you compare this situation with the dragon? We could talk with Spike, he is a rational being, but instead settle things straight he attacked us and run away like a rapid dog!"

"That's because he's confused, Twilight. He just woke up and believes he still lives in his own time. We rushed him to early about this.", she defended Spike, the angel one. The yellow pegasus sighed as she continued: "When we woke the dragon up and pleaded him to sleep somewhere else, it attacked us. Because it didn't understand that there were others around him who were here before. It's the same with Spike. We also went to a cave -sort of- and woke him up. He attacked us because he is confused about this new world. He doesn't want to believe there's somepony else around him now who can talk like him."

"I...I guess so", Twilight found the pegasus' explanations convincing enough to accept. "But that doesn't excuse this aggressive behavior. Have you seen how he hurt me and Rainbow? This isn't something you should expect from an angel."

"How would you react if you were the very last pony and woke up around a group of angels?", Fluttershy asked her, her voice suddenly turned slightly cooler than to expect from a soft voice like hers. "Think about it Twilight. Good night." The unicorn looked at Fluttershy blankly as she turned her back and went upstairs.

As the door slammed shut, Twilight pondered and calculated if she overlooked something which could have prevented this exaggeration of the situation. She went back and forth aimlessly and muttered logical theories over theories.

"I think Fluttershy is right about this.", Spike, the dragon, piped in again, as he felt that Twilight was able to be spoken at again.

"Not you too, Spike!", Twilight was affronted by his disposition and glared at him annoyed.

"But it's true, Twilight. We went to fast about this. We gave him no free room so he tried to escape. He probably thinks we are some monsters or something", the dragon rambled on, not having any tactfulness at what he stated.

"MONSTERS!", Twilight shrieked at him stupefied. "If there is a monster, then he is!"

"Calm down, Twilight, I am just saying. Look, just give him time, okay? Maybe it will be better if he has some free space", Spike assured her and held his tiny claws in defense.

Twilight looked at him and remained quiet first. As she thought through Spike's and Fluttershy's opinions of the matter, she became more and more convinced that she screwed things up. Tears were forming in her eyes and then started to cry.

"I didn't want any of this",she wept, her hoofs covering her tear filled eyes. " I just wanted to explore some ancient temple a- and have some fun adventure w-with, with you all. But not being confronted with _that_. I wish Princess Celestia was here. She- she would know what to do..."

The baby dragon looked at her, saddened by his friends sudden bawl. He got closer and hugged her gently.

" I-I failed as- as her student...", Twilight hick-upped, and wept into Spike's little shoulders.

"No, you didn't Twilight.", the baby dragon consoled her, rubbing her back carefully, trying not to scratch her with his claws. "Please stop crying."

* * *

The bounty hunter heard the crying of the violet unicorn down here, tied up he was. Now he felt bad that it had to come this far.

"What a day" , he sighed and closed his eyes. Waking up, confronted with talking ponies, escaping from more talking ponies, ship crashed beyond repair, his comrades probably either dead, starved or turned insane, and he caught a cold from to long cryostasis freeze. And after all this he felt bad that this damn horse started to cry. Confound those ponies...

"I really wish I had a drink..."

* * *

End of Session β: Overture of the paddock

Author's note:  
THAT IS THE LAST TIME I TRY SUBMITTING LONG CHAPTERS!

Seriously, this is killing me. I also have to fill chunks of my other two fics! Bah, I'll never get finished like this.

Hope you enjoyed though. Next submissions will be kept short, but updated fast.


	6. Session γ : Elegy of truth, part 1

_/Author's note:_

_I got to say some things._

_First, sorry for the delay. But writing takes time, especially if you have a longer storyboard working on. But don't worry, it's all working on the setting first, I will come to the good parts soon._

_Secondly, I had to disable the anonymous reviews since some douche was spamming me with his brain dead shit. If you want to comment without creating an account, you can do this on Equestria Daily:_

_h**p:/w*__*. equestriadaily_. _com/2011/02/story-pony-symphony. html_

_Third,I'll be start adding song titles from the Bebop OST once the scene demands it. Hey, what is a good CB crossover without music?_

_Fourth, please,rate and review! They help me to get rid of any inner flaws or lack in future writing./

* * *

_

**Session γ : Elegy of truth - part one**

Twilight Sparkle woke up early, much earlier than she was used too. She couldn't sleep well, her mind tried to work out what happened last night. Finding and reviving an angel wasn't something which could happen any day, especially if this angel didn't match any of the portrayal she found in books. And that was what Twilight Sparkle did when she didn't know the right answer: Read all possible books and make a conclusion with all found material. Unfortunately, she couldn't find anything useful, just some stupid occult books which presented angels the same over and over: _Angels, also called Seraphim, messenger of gods, possessing wings of doves,soulless but pure creatures..._

"None of this matches _his _profile!_", _she cried out exasperated and threw the last book she read away frustrated.

"_Oh, what should I do, what should I do, what should I do_?", she went on with the mantra as she slurred back and forth, both Spikes snoring loudly from different directions. "I wish Princess Celestia would answer my last report. What keeps her so long?"

The unicorn sent several reports to her teacher the last days, about her discovery in the abyss, about this 'Bebop', and a whole detailed more or less embarrassing one about the angel Spike Spiegel. She refrained herself sending a report about her last talk with the angel, because she may fear that Princess Celestia might be disappointed. She also didn't want to lie to her, her loyalty was to great for such vile methods, so she left it just out to send her any more letters. But still, it was weird that the Princess didn't respond to her most faithful student, especially about Twilight's discovery. It was a discovery of the century after all, oh who was she kidding, of the millennium! Angels were real, no old mares tale, real in flesh and blood! It already started rumors spreading around Ponyville about Spike and it was obvious that the merchants which came and went from Canterlot and Fillidelphia already brought them over to the different cities of Equestria, to the highest of the princess quarters no doubt. So why didn't she respond? Did Princess Celestia just shrugged it as pony tale with the same skepticism of Applejack? Maybe she thought her student lost it with the old documents of Equestrius Longus and was guessing it as a phase of Twilight? Or maybe...

"Arrghh! I can't go on like this!", Twilight stopped her inner bickering and stomped determined. "I got to handle it myself." Her horn glowed and a sheet of paper and a feather with ink came before her.

"Alright, let's form a plan" , she said and started scribbling. "Step one..."

* * *

Fluttershy jumped three meters high as suddenly she heard loud banging coming from downstairs.

"Oh-oh my!", Fluttershy whimpered, fully awake, as she hid her snooze under her pillow. She blinked as she realized that is was just the door. "Who-who could that be?"

Curious, and scared of course, she wrapped a bathrobe around her waist, trotted down the stairs, and opened the door.

"Oh,ehmm, hi Twilight", Fluttershy startled, seeing her friend at this hour before her house. "H-how can I help y-"

"You got to help me out, Fluttershy!", the violet unicorn said in a panicked voice. "I don't know what to do!" Twilight's face was pale and dark eyelids underlay her open shot eyes. Her body sweat and she trembled uncontrollable.

"C-calm down Twili-", Fluttershy tried to assure her, but was interrupted by Twilight:

"No, there is nothing to be calm about! There is a moody angel in my cellar who doesn't match any of the descriptions I found in my books and could attack me any minute! Princess Celestia hasn't replied me for days, and I got no plans for situation like these."

Tears sprinkle her eyes, and the pony started to sob: "I am doomed, Fluttershy, I-I can't handle it any longer!"

Fluttershy saw how miserable Twilight looked, her weeping made her look even more pitiful. The friend she was, she neared her friend and hugged her carefully.

"There, there, Twilight", she whispered into her ear, stroking her violet hair gently. "We will find a way, don't worry."  
"I-I am scared", Twilight hiccuped and hid her snooze in Fluttershys soft mane while weeping even stronger. "Scared of _him."_

"Oh don't be. He is just scared as well", Fluttershy murmured, still holding Twilight. She waited patiently until the unicorn pony was finished with weeping. When Twilight was removing herself from the pegasus ' embrace and washing her strained tears away, Fluttershy offered: "Say, it's cold outside. Why don't we go in and drink some tea?"

"Yeah...", Twilight sniffled and smiled at her friend exhilarated a little now. "Good idea"

* * *

"I am sorry about before, Fluttershy", Twilight Sparkled sighed and rubbed her reddened eyelids. She was sitting on a chair in Fluttershy's living room."I am not usually so...dispersed"

"Oh, it's alright", Fluttershy assured her from a distance. She entered then while holding a tea tray in her mouth. As she put in on the small table, she forced a chuckle to cool the tension: "It was a really weird week for all of us."

"Yeah, you can say that", the unicorn replied and looked sideways while smiling. She looked around Fluttershy's inner house, realizing she never went it. It was really comfy and well organized. Bird houses hanging in every corner, and small holes where probably the pegasus' squirrels slept. The table the ponies sat among was standing on a green floor with a red carped lying over it. As Fluttershy poured the tea to Twiligh's cup, the violet pony asked: "So, what should we do about Spike?"

Fluttershy blinked and nearly dropped her jar. "Err...the angel one,right?" She received a nod. "Well..." The yellow pegasus put a hoof under her chin and sipped her tea, pondering. She honestly had no idea either what to do with the angel. The last three days he stayed unconscious, once more, were a real tense time for everypony. Twilight was left alone to nurse Spike back to his health, the majority of the other ponies didn't want to get involved with him any longer. They were to much in shock about how he acted once he woke up from his milennium long sleep and needed time to work things out. Dash probably got it worst of all, having one of her wings broken during an ambush attempt and being left sulking in her castle afterward, not being able fulfilling her duties or training for the Wonderbolts. Applejack didn't show up and was taking over BicMac's shifts for bucking more apple trees. That was probably her way working problems out. And Rarity closed her store for unknown reasons and didn't come out of her house. The white unicorn even missed their weekly massage session without apologizing afterward. Sweetie Belle could only shrug if Fluttershy asked after her best friend. And Pinkie Pie was...well, Pinkie Pie, but a little more jumpy with her twitching and less making parties than usual. The pink earth pony and Fluttershy were the only ones left helping Twilight now and then, taking over guarding the sleeping angel when Twilight either took a nap or was writing her recent reports to Princess Celestia. The yellow Pegasus remembered that Pinkie was humming the tale of Andromeda silently, almost mantra-like, with a thoughtful expression on her face.

Even during those watch-overs Fluttershy wasn't sure how to handle the whole new situation the ponies brought themselves into. Entering Everfree Forest, diving into the abyss, finding a ghost town of a former civilasation, flying with an unknown machine from a big scary monster, and then finding Spike... Fluttershy should have maybe just excused herself for like watching over her animals or lying about having a cold, then she wouldn't be confronted with this whole mess. But she knew about Twilight's reckless curiosity and couldn't let her friend getting hurt like the time she was turned into stone. And maybe it was a good thing it was them who found the angel. Who knew what would've happened if he woke up in this darkness down there, all alone and left with the monster? But this realization didn't make her feel better. This whole thing was just as confusing to her as it was to Twilight. And other questions came up unanswered. Why could both angel and ponies communicate so well despite so long millennium intervals for example? Or why was Spike put under cryogenic sleep or whatever it was?

While pondering deeply, both ponies heard thumb tapping outside the hut.

"What was that?", Twilight shot up, looking scared.

"Oh, that was just one of the bunnies. They do that sometimes when they are asleep", Fluttershy answered apologizing. Then a thought occurred her.

"Bunnies...", she mumbled mulling over.

"Hhm?", the violet pony looked at her friend curious after calming herself down. Then, her friend looked like light dawned on her.

" I got it, Twilight", the yellow pony rushed exited, the teacup she was holding was shaking slightly its content out. "Angel!"

"Angel?", Twilight asked perplexed. "Well, he is an angel, alright..."

"Oh nonononono, Twilight", tattled Fluttershy while waving her hoofs. "Not _the _angel, I mean Bunny Angel!"

An eyebrow crooked over Twilight's left eye. "Uhh, not sure if I can follow you..."

"You see, Angel is a lot like Spike, ehm, the angel one! He is moody and grumpy and doesn't want to listen to me sometimes, ehm, a lot some times, hehe ", Fluttershy explained her, while chuckling embarrassed. She continued: "But when I give him a smile and show patience and let him know I care about him, even he will eat his carrots on schedule...well, sometimes."

Twilight contemplated in silence and looked over to the yellow pegasus."So, you're saying is..."

"Sometimes a smile can move the biggest rocks", she replied nodding and smiled. "Let Spike know that you care about him, then he will accept you as a friend."

"But this is what I, we have been trying this the whole time!", the unicorn ranted frustrated. "We all helped him to wake up, we told him the truth, and nursed him even after he tried to flee and threaten us! But all he does is either ignore me or taunt me like I was his worst enemy!"

"Twilight", Futtershy sighed and put down her tea cup. "I told you already before: Spike is still confused about this world. It seems like ponies in his time weren't as this as we are now. And he can't comprehend this. It's the wrong approach to force him to accept this. We have to show patience and let him know that we want to be his friends." She gave her friend an expecting look. "Especially you should show how you care about him."

"But...why me?", Twilight looked to her own teacup with a worried expression. All the time the unicorn pony wondered why she wanted to help Spike Spiegel so much. He didn't want any of their help and was just trouble for all. But she was the only one of everypony who took him under her wing. It wasn't just her royal duty for Princess Celestia, there seemed to be more, but she couldn't grasp it.

"Because, Twilight, there can't be any better friend like yourself out there ", Fluttershy answered. She filled her cup again and took a deep sip, enjoying the taste, the smile never leaving her.

* * *

/Author's note: "Memory" sound track tuning in/

* * *

He dreamed of a blond woman which still haunted him in his head. It was a beautiful dream, but with an ending he couldn't change, no matter how much he wanted to.

It was the usual story. Boy met girl and both fell in love. But their forbidden love forced them to leave the paradise they lived in. They fled and were free; but it wouldn't be a good love story if there was a catch: One of the lovers had to die. And it happened to be the wrong one, as always.

"_It's all just...", her eyes sparkled one last time and curved a soft smile. "...a dream"._

Spike opened his eyes slightly. "Yeah", he whispered in his conscious equilibrium. "It's all just a dream."

He found himself in the cellar again. The bounty was still tied on the bed and still felt like crap. His throat was dried up from thirst, his stomach crumpled painfully and he needed to go to the bathroom really badly or else. It was the usual pain he got used to when he traveled across space to hunt down criminals for low bounty prices just to survive. But he wasn't in space, not even close.

Spike darted his eyes lazily while thinking about the last days. Suddenly he blinked as he saw something glowing over him. It was fluttering above him, its wings going up and down fast pacing while shining golden. It was the most beautiful butterfly he saw in his life. He was kept as some pony's prisoner like a caged wild animal and couldn't get out of here even he managed to free himself. He just couldn't fight against the pony and her friends much to his disdain. His first attack on the ponies was just a short circuit of his mantle of coolness he kept on, and now cooled down he felt bad for hurting Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. They weren't evil, on the contrary, they cared deeply for him, too much for his taste, but that didn't make the situation better for the bounty hunter. The Bebop was a trash can and Jet was not around to repair it. He was stuck on this planet. A planet full of talking ponies. Spike couldn't believe hell could be this cute.

* * *

/AN:"Cats on Mars" tuning in/

* * *

Suddenly the door upstairs slammed open, causing him to knock out of his half-sleeping, jumping slightly while being pulled back forcefully by his shackles. The bounty hunter heard soft galloping noises.

_Her again,_ he thought annoyed. Spike tried to look away and ignore her, like he did before. But suddenly he felt his shackles fall and could move his arms freely. He turned surprised and saw Twilight Sparkle smiling broadly to him. She appeared like she didn't remember what happened just yesterday between him and her, or even before that. Spike couldn't even detect any signs of fear like she had before, she really looked happy to see him. Weird.

"Morning Spike!", she greeted him in a warmhearted tone. "I hope you slept well?"

"Morning", he muffled and rubbed his bruised ankles while giving the unicorn dwarf a skeptical glare. "You are untying me because...?"

"So you can join us at breakfast,silly", she chuckled and went upstairs "Hurry up before everything gets cold."

"Breakfast?", Spike blinked puzzled. He didn't know those animals were cultured enough to cook, let alone to know what breakfast was. Maybe he should reconsider to stop thinking them as animals. They definitely were almost at human level. _Almost_. The bounty hunter followed the pony, his long legs slightly shaking from the stiffness out of lying in the same position for several days. He really needed to do his old warm up rounds again, he felt like a stuffed out scarecrow.

Spike found himself in the main floor of the tree house, still filled with books every corner.

"Say, this is your house,right?", the bounty hunter asked as he looked around.

"Yes, of course, why do you ask?", Twilight answered and searched with her snooze in a small cupboard near the cellar door.

"It does look more like an open library than a living room.", the bounty hunter replied and scratched his chest casually.

"Oh, that's because I am a librarian for free time, so I moved in Pony Ville's open library.", the violet pony turned up to him and suddenly her horn glowed again. "Now say 'Ahhh'."

" **'**_Ahh_**-'** ? **MPFH**!", Spike eyes opened wide as something entered his mouth forcefully and closed his lips out of reflexes. Panicked he tried to pull this thing out, but it stuck tight in his peep hole. Then finally, it came out, leaving the bounty hunter breathing in relieve. He saw that Twilight was looking at the small baton thoughtfully and gave her a glare while breathing harshly: "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Perfect, your temperature sunk to a normal state, you're as good as new!", the pony said and with whatever laws of physics was possible, a small violet cloud Spike saw before levitated and brought the baton to the next trashcan. Twilight went to the next room with a slow gracious galloping while calling after the bounty hunter: "Now, come along, Spike is already waiting for us."

"_Spike?_", the bounty hunter spluttered out, even more baffled than before.

_This is too much, I must be getting crazy now,_ he tried to think while plodding forward_, Yes, it's all just hallucination, I must be probably in an asylum, crazy beyond helping, and see talking ponies-_

He entered what looked like a kitchen. Two sinks were near him on the wall, with two mirrors hover over them. Cupboards hanging or lying on the corners and walls where probably dishes and food was stored. Before him was a medium sized round table. On it was milk, orange juice, apples, bread, green salad and other healthy looking meals. And there sat...

"A-A **DRAGON**?", Spike shot up horrified and took a stepped back while holding arms up panicked. The small purple-green dragon darted its reptilian eyes to the sides confused until it realized who was addressed.

"Uhh, ehem...hi", it greeted him with a childlike voice and forced a smile while winking with its small claws. "You must be..."

"Oh Spike, you haven't met Spike yet, did you? Oh, of course you did, just not while he was conscious", Twilight sat opposite to the dragon and was grabbing sandwich...with her hoofs.

"Gosh, it will be hard distinguishing you both since you carry the same name. How about I label you with Spike 1 and Spike 2? Hm, no, this would bring in confusion with 'too'. Then how about..." She went on with her rambling, still holding the sandwich while its contents started to fall out slowly.

The bounty hunter has calmed himself down and tried to suppress his further xenophobia by acting with his usual coolness, sitting besides Spike, and giving the dragon a muffled look.

"Is she always like this?", Spike tried to whisper, while pointing his thumb to the currently reality distant violet pony.

"You don't want to see her when she is in her 'study' mode. But you will soon if she is so wrapped up already", the purple dragon answered and gave him an shrug.

"Huh, lucky me", the bounty hunter muttered while he grabbed after a fork as well. He noticed the plate before him wasn't a sandwich, but full of green too healthy looking leaves. "What is this?"

"That's onion salad", Spike answered.

"Yech!", the bounty hunter stuck his tongue out and shoved the plate away. "Don't you have any eggs and bacon?"

"Oh sorry, but Twilight and the others ponies here don't appreciate flesh.", the dragon apologized and looked at him sympathetically.

"Figures", Spike sighed and tried to live with bread and butter. "Would've been a lot weirder if they did. But wait, you are a ...dragon, is that what you are called?" The dragon nodded casually. "Aren't you...depending on flesh?" He tried not to blurt out 'swallowing princesses'.

"Oh, not really. But I need a high ration of protein and other nutrition, it's part of a dragon's diet. So Twilight Sparkle makes an exception for me", the small dragon answered and took a plate which was full of maggots. Spike took a hand full of it and put it in his own sandwich "Want some?"

"Err, pass", the bounty hunter blanched at the dragon's 'diet' and tried to focus only on his bread then.

"I got it!", Twilight brought the attention of both to her by stomping her sandwich. " How about this: You are Alpha-Spike, and you are Beta-Spike? "

"Uhh-", both Spikes gave odd looks each other. The bounty hunter waged if he should tell her 'Spiegel' would be just fine or rather should protest why he was the 'Beta' one.

"Good, then it's settled", she decided in triumph and wanted to bite her sandwich, only to realize that all its contents fell out. While showing it back into the sandwich she warbled: "Alpha-Spike, Beta-Spike, please hurry up eating your breakfast, we have lots of work to do today."

"What kind of work?", Spike, the beta one, asked perplexed. "Hey wait a minute, since when do I have to work to begin with? Don't I get some special status 'cause I am the only non-critter around here?"

"Not that kind of work, well at least not yet", the pony answered while waving a hoof. "I will be running a few test with you to understand your capabilities and abilities better."

"So", the bounty hunter lost his appetite in bread and decided to poke into the salad instead. "You want to _study_ me?"

"Well, yeah, you could say that.", she gave him smile which hinted an expectation that he would agree.

Spike looked to his dragon fellow, who glared at him as if he wanted to express "I told you so".

"Well...", the bounty hunter pondered while stabbing a leave bored. "As long as you don't turn me to your new lab rat and start vivisecting me, why not?"

Spike, the alpha one, was face palming with his maggot sandwich.

* * *

**End of ****Session γ : Elegy of truth_part one**


	7. Session γ : Elegy of truth, part 2

**Session γ : Elegy of truth - part two**

* * *

"And how is it going, Twilight?", Fluttershy asked curiously. She and and her friend were outside the pegasus' hut, sitting on comfortable cushions and enjoying the sunny weather.

"Kinda good for the start I guess. I let Beta-Spike just run a few tests", Twilight replied her nonchalantly as she looked into her cup frowning.

"Uh, oh", Fluttershy sweat dropped at her response, wondering who was 'Beta-Spike' now. She knew the unicorn has strange methods how to treat her friends, but it sounded kinda dangerous. "What kind of...tests?"

"Oh, nothing biggie. I just let him do some exercises to loosen him up a bit. He was really as stiff as stone. And he seemed to appreciate it. When we were halfway through, he gloated 'You call that _tests_?'", she chuckled weakly and stirred her tea with a spoon by using magic. "His attitude reminds me of Rainbow Dash somewhat."

Fluttershy coughed distractingly and looked upstairs carefully. She knew a certain blue pegasus wouldn't appreciate hearing this. Relieved that no rainbow was on sight, the yellow pegasus returned her attention to Twilight Sparkle who was oblivious to her actions.

"But then I asked him..."

* * *

/AN:"Cosmos" tuning in/

* * *

"Why don't you have wings?"

"Hm?" Spike looked down to his equine fellow lazily. The bounty hunter was sweating heavily and drank some water as he sat on a bench settled in a corner of the cellar. He still couldn't believe what happened as they started their 'tests'. Suddenly the whole room changed, furniture replaced by gymnastic tool, even the room seemed to have increased by width. As he asked how this happened, the unicorn just replied with "Magic". Yeah, he still needed to get used to this.

"Angels are supposed to have wings. That's what I find in every book which has information about your species. So how come you don't have any?", Twilight urged him, eying him critically.

"Oh, hehe", Spike couldn't help but chuckle at her confusion. "That's simple. It's because I ain't none."

The pony's eyes bulged at surprise and gaped: "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Well, for one I belong to a species called_ humans_. We are...uh...", the bounty hunter tried to scratch his hair as he tried to find the right word, only to meet metal. He forgot that the pony put this tureen over his head which should collect 'data', whatever it was. "Well, kinda like angels, just without the wings...do I make any sense now?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow and thought deeply, only to blink then in realization. "Oh, so you're an earth angel!"

"What?", a puzzled look spread on Spike's face.

"Oh, silly me, I should have told you about this on breakfast", Twilight blushed crimson as she chuckled.

She hold a pretty taut kept explanation about the three pony species to the human. "It must be really like with us! It means that those kind of angels portrayed in the books are pegasus angels! And you're an earth angel, labeled as human!"

"If you put it that way...well, sure", Spike shrugged resigned. The bounty hunter rather wanted to leave it with that since he wasn't up for long arsed explanations.

The violet pony smiled broadly and clopped her hoofs in victory. "This is _so _exiting! With your help I could write a whole new thesis about _angelogy_! Do unicorn angels also exist? Can they control magic too?"

"Mhhh, do they?", Spike looked up and placed a finger under his chin as he fought. Then a light lit up in his head. "Actually there is something like that."

"Great, how are they called?", Twilight continued asking, her eyes glittering in agitation.

"We call them _devils_."

"D...d...d...d...", the violet pony stuttered, terrified by this knowledge.

Spike grinned at her, finding sudden amusement in her predictable reactions."Yeah, devils, the ones with the goat horns, they probably know magic."

Twilight knocked herself back from her shock and blinked at him. "Probably?"

"Never met one. Neither have I had the chance to associate with an angel with wings."

"Hm, interesting", the unicorn absorbed the further information. She concluded: "So no contact between earth, unicorn and pegasus angel could be established, is that right?"

Spike scoffed at her and crossed his arms, annoyed that she didn't catch his sarcasm. "I'm trying to say saying they aren't real."

Twilight looked up to him, getting more confused by this. "What do you mean they aren't real?"

The bounty hunter sighed and answered unwillingtly:

"Long ago, my kin believed there were others out there. In heaven the messengers of God, namely angels, in earth crawled with devils. Both were hating each other with guts and waged war on each other, or so how it was told." Spike waited for a response from his fellow, and continued as he received a nod from her:

"Then, we hum..._ earth angels _got better in handling with all kinds of science. We managed to dive into earth and reach the highest sky. And did you know what we found?" Again he paused. As he saw an expected shook from her snooze, he said coldly:

"Just rock. _Dead rock_. Nothing more, nothing less. We realized that we were alone in this universe, no God taking pity in our suffer. So we just made the best out of it, and tried to live despite there was nothing to believe for."

"Nothing to believe for?" Twilight felt his statement quite disturbing. How could anypony think like that?

"Yeah", the bounty hunter nodded and spectated his water bottle as he spun it over his hand. "Life is like dream, it's better to enjoy it without asking. I know a lot of guys who went crazy once they realized how meaningless life may look."

Twilight Sparkle regarded Spike one last time as she saw that he meant it what he just said. She nodded and said: "I see" and turned her back to him as she walked down the room.

* * *

"I let this slip past and let Beta-Spike do the next round. Risking another argument was the last thing both of us needed. But I was really thrown off about his statement." Twilight drifted off and looked away from Fluttershy, her frown still present.

"Is this why you, uhm, look so down?", Fluttershy asked carefully. Twilight shook her head immediately.

"No, that's not it", she replied and focused her stare on her friend. "When we continued with the testing, _it _happened..."

* * *

"Uhh", Spike felt uncomfortable standing in the middle of the cellar. He didn't know where Twilight trotted of to, and the room changed again at a blink. This time every device was gone, and instead sand was covering the floor, the kind of sand you usually put on playgrounds, gray and cement like. "What kind of test is this now?"

"I want to see how good you are at combat",the pony's voice echoed the room from everywhere. Spike wasn't able to make out the source of her voice. "You seem to have really fast reflexes, your last stunts really threw me off"

"Yeah, _I threw you off_,alright", the bounty hunter shot back half-taunting, referencing to his two escape attempts. "So what, you gonna pull some kung-hoof stunts on me?"

"Heavens no!", a cackle came in response. "I was just trying to make a compliment, that's all! But I want to see what you are capable off."

* * *

/AN:"Doggie Dog III" tuning in/

* * *

Spike remained quiet, feeling adrenalin surging through his blood. _Finally some action! _

He heard bulging behind him. Immediately the bounty hunter spun around while giving a crescent kick. He divided something into halves. Whatever he hit, it stumbled and pulverized into sand.

"Hey, I wasn't done yet!", an annoyed cry erupted. "Hold your horses, will you?"

"Oh, sorry", Spike apologized, scratching his head with the metal plate on it embarrassed. The bounty hunter crossed his arms then and waited patiently for the upcoming brawl. Before him little sand clouds engulfed in an indigo twirled up, first one, then three, and then seven. Each of them began to get form, from a ball to a cube and so on. Soon they transformed into humanoid bodies. Spike blinked as he realized they have taken his very own shape, with the fuzzy hair and the lines of the pair of trousers he wears. But then a smirk started to spread over his face.

"Finally!", the bounty hunter shouted as he crunched his knuckles. "Let's do science: Hit it!"

The nearest sand golem dashed to him, its fists raised. Spike blocked the attack at ease and punched it on its artificial face. The golem reeled back after the punch, but attacked again, followed by two other sand creatures. They surrounded Spike and tried to attack at once. The bounty hunter jumped over them and he made a low cut kick while landing. The body cocked its head before it split to half, returning to sand. The victory was short lived as Spike felt being tangled from behind. Before it could perform a body slam, the bounty hunter hit its elbow to the attacker's face several times to stun him. Then he freed himself and returned the favor by tackling it and body slam with a loud crunch. Spike jumped up immediately and blocked several attacks from other golems.  
The battle went on for another five minutes. Spike managed to kick several of them to dust, but even more golems came up and joined the brawl. It were nearly 15 of them the bounty hunter was fighting! Twilight Sparkle could only gape in silence how the angel could take them all while giving an elegant atmosphere. But she still locked her focus on the golems. It was a hard spell she was pulling off, so she had no time on fawning.

"Hey!", she heard Spike's smugness coming up as he was punching almost dance like through the golems. "if science was always like this, I'd get my diploma in less than two wee-". Suddenly he stopped as his eyes widened and trembled uncontrollably. Blood trailed down from his nose. Before the bounty hunter could react, he received a sucker punch from the golem before him, and flew backwards.

"SPIKE!", Twilight Sparkle screamed. All golems vanished at instance, and the pony came out of her hide, galloping to the defeated angel. He lay backwards, breathing heavily. The bounty hunter appeared as if he was in a delirium, looking blankly at the ceiling.

"Are you hurt! What happened?", she nudged Spike softly, trying to get his attention.  
"I'm fine", he mumbled calmly and darted his eyes to the unicorn pony. He sweat a lot more than before.

Twilight frowned. "Are you sure? You look so pale. We should go see the doctor-"

"I said I'm fine! Geez!", Spike waved a hand annoyed. Slowly he get up and craned his neck, taking long and deep breaths. "I...think I overdid it. My body seems to be still weak from the cryostat."

Twilight gave him a critical stare one last time. "If you say so", she nodded and turned her back to him. "Anyway, we're done"

"Wait", Spike shot back, feeling a strange deja vúe. "Aren't we still have to finish the other tests?"

"The data will be all useless if you're a wreck", she huffed and trotted away.

"It's a pleasure working with you...", she heard him spat. Followed by a bump. She turned to him, her eyes open wide.

* * *

"Oh my!", Fluttershy put of hoof over her mouth, shocked to hear this. "I hope he is alright..."

"Yeah, he is", Twilight sighed and looked down. She poured more tea into her cup with magic. "He takes a nap now. I wasn't up analyzing the new data, so I just called it a day"

"Strange", Fluttershy whispered softly but audible enough to the unicorn pony.

"Yeah, really strange", Twilight nodded in agreement "I thought he was healthy now, and now he got this weird access..."

"Oh no, I mean, 'Strange, I thought I just saw Spike and Pinkie Pie entering the Everfree Forest' ", Fluttershy said sheepishly.

Eyes were bulging out as the violet pony looked to Fluttershy."Which Spike?", she asked, her tea trembling in the cup.

"Uhh, the not so angel-angel?", came the confused answer.

* * *

/AN:"Cat blues" tuning in/

* * *

_30 minutes earlier_

The door of the library cracked open gradually. A brown eye looked out which dashed in every direction. As it saw nothing around, the door slammed open fully. Spike walked out of the library with steady steps and turned his attention to the road before him. He sighed: "Here we go again."

Before he managed to take less than five steps, a high pitched voice perked up:"What'cha doing?"

"WAAAH!", the bounty hunter jumped up high and stumbled on the earth. He turned his head and saw the pink pony he saw with the others yesterday.

"Oh, is this some sort of game?", she asked while standing directly over him. She crooked her head to look into his eyes. She smiled broadly and snipped: "Can I join, can I join, pleasepleaseplease?"

Spike jabbed a finger on her breast and said weakly: "Don't do... this ever again!"

The pony regarded him puzzled."Do what?"

"What you just did!", he barked, his voice regaining strengh.

"But how should I stop something if I don't know what I just did?", she looked at the sky and pondered deeply.

"Gawd, you're just like-", Spike wanted to raise his fists to rant, but then realized there was no point arguing with them. He groaned: "Never mind. What do you want?"

"I was asking first", the pony replied and looked to him down. "What'cha doing?"

Spike's eyes darted sideways, making sure none of the other ponies were around. He said: "I wanted to get clothes..."

"Oh, why haven't you said before!", she grinned at him happily and helped him up. "I'm sure Rarity would try to give you the most beautiful outfit-"

"No!", Spike shouted and put his hands in defense. The pink pony looked at him surprised, and he sighed: "Look, I already have clothes, but they are on the ship..."

"Oh, I see", she nodded and kept her grin still on. "Then I'm going with you!"

"Huh?Why?", Spike gave her a puzzled look.

"Because you are a meanie-pans no one can trust!", the pony laughed in response.

"My, aren't you bold", he muttered and turned his back to her. "Whatever, let's just get over with-"

Suddenly a loud grumble erupted out of nowhere, making both blink.

"Oh, was that my tummy, or was it yours?", the pony asked the bounty hunter and looked to her own stomach.

"I guess that's mine",Spike huffed and placed his hand around his belly. "Breakfast wasn't really that good, too much leaves and worms..."

"Oh, then I have the best solution!", the pink pony jumped up and down excited. "Follow me, follow me! By the way, my name's Pinkie Pie!"

The pink pony jumped ahead with all four hoofs, something Spike never believed an equine could do. He staggered sluggishly to keep up with her, still feeling dizzy from his last faint. The bounty hunter didn't know what happened when he fought the sand golems. At first he felt like he was on a roller coaster of adrenalin, but then suddenly a pain shot through his whole body. A flash of dizziness has caught him and caused him to throw off his balance. Let's not forget that he was nose bleeding too! Whatever it was, the bounty hunter hoped it won't come up again for he was getting control over his body again.

He and Pinkie Pie entered the what seemed to be the market of Ponyville. Open stores were on the sides while the center was full with several market huts for buying fruits and more. It was filled with ponies of all classes and in all colours and were chatting and laughing. But they turned all quiet suddenly as the human entered the center. Every equine watched him with wide eyes, making Spike feel as if camouflage cameras were catching every inch of his being.

"Oh, look, dears, it's that angel everypony is talking about", Spike heard a raspy voice. He turned his head and saw three old ponies sitting among a round table, playing...cards? One of a green earth pony, one a white pegasus, and the last a soft blueish unicorn.

"Ah, that takes me back to my old days when I have seen an angel...", the pegasus granny said, fawning over him.

"Ye never saw an angel before, ye sleazy boob!", the unicorn ranted and took a card from the deck.

"No fighting, Granny Gem, think of your blood pressure", the green pony admonished her collegue.

Spike sweatdropped at their conversation. They gave him a deja-vúe for some reason.

"Listen up, everypony!", Pinkie Pie jumped before him. Spike's eyes shot wide in shock. _Oh no, don't..._

"This is Spike Spiegle, the last angel ever! He is kind of a meanie-pans, but a nice guy nonetheless! So say all hi to him!"

The ponies around Spike remained quiet first. Spike felt his heart beating heavily and bit his lower lip for some reason. At the next moment, any silence was dropped and all ponies cheered at him: "**HI, OTHER SPIKE!", **causing him to take a step backwards with a dumbfounded look. Everything returned to normal, all ponies minding their own business again. Pinkie Pie gave him a sly grin as she saw him weirded out by what just happened.

"Uhm, thanks?", Spike murmured, scratching his head perplexed.

"Oh, don't mention it", Pinkie Pie replied and started trotting. "Now, let's get to the bakery."

Spike said nothing and followed her. It still felt so wrong being around talking hors- ponies who think he is an angel. He hoped he would get used to this later on. If he still remained here of course...

Suddenly, he saw a brown colt gaping before him as if he was a ghost. He wore a red bow tie, which was _weird_ like everything else, and had a hourglass cutie mark on his flank.

"I-It can't be!", it stammered and galloped away in fast speed.

"Errr...", Spike brought Pinkie Pie's attention to him as he pointed to the running colt. "I thought everypo- everybody was already past that I am real?"

"Oh, don't mind him", she snickered amused "That's just Doctor Whooves, the crazy doc of Ponyville. He's funny!" At that, she continued her way to said bakery.

Both reached a small building which resembled the evil witch's candy house. Pinkie Pie jumped into the store which left a jingle from the door. The bounty hunter looked at the building one more before entering it. Before he was even able to take a step inside the bakery, a cupcake appeared out of nowhere before his eyes.

"Meet my special cupcake, it fills any empty stomache with just a itsie bitsie bitey-titey!", it was Pinkie Pie who showed a cupcake to his face. Spike picked it up and sniffed at it. He felt the heat radiating from it, and it smelled fresh and good. He was starting to savor, but a thought stopped him from eating it.

"Why are you doing this? Am I not the 'meanie-pans' here?", he gave the pink pony a questioning stare, trying not to show his hunger.

"Of course you are, but I can't leave anypony who is starving to death! Besides, I have met a lot worse meanie-pansies than you, and this means something! I think", Pinkie Pie answered. She nudged him with her snooze to a bench at the window. "Now eat up, clopclop!"

Spike regarded the cupcake in his hand and considered if he should eat it. After all, who knew if it was poisonous? He still was skeptical to all the nice behavior of the ponies, he learned that looks may deceive. But his stomach arched again. _Alright,alright, I get it, _the bounty hunter thought annoyed and took a small bite. His eyes bulged at the taste. Hunger overtook him, and he swallowed the cupcake as if both were wolf and lamb.

"Look at your face, I can see you like it!", Pinkie Pie jumped exited and smiled in victory.

"It's...delicious", Spike muttered, looking down at his trembling hands. He turned his gaze to the pink pony, giving her a horrified look. "This is the best damn thing I have eaten my whole life!"

"Oh, that's so sweet for you!", Pinkie Pie squealed and hugged him suddenly, much to his discomfort. "Just for that it's on the house!"

"Wait", Spike freed from the hug and hold the pony before him. " You wanted me to pay for it?"

"Of course not,silly", she giggled and continued rambling: "You just woke up from a quanzillium of years and have no money, I'd just put it on Twilight's tab, since you sleep in her house, so I think she and you live together, and despite you being a meanie-pans both of you are best of friends and then-"

"Woah there!", Spike put a hand over her mouth as she said the word 'friend'. "Don't you think becoming friends is a little to early? "

"It's never to early or to late!", Pinkie Pie replied and jumped from Spike's grip. Suddenly music tuned up.

"What the-?", the bounty hunter looked everywhere to find the source of the sounds, but to no avail.

"Oh, that always comes up if I start a new song", Pinkie explained to him as if she expected him to react that way.

"Uh, song?", Spike stared at her oddly, but before he could ask further, Pinkie Pie started singing:

"_Friendship is the greatest thing,_

_you can start it all day!_

_It's a ship which never sinks,_

_when a friend drives the way!_

_It's fun, it's adventure,_

_it's the spice of life!_

_It's the strongest magic which never ends!_

_But you have speak the spell before it bends!"_

As she was finished, she made a weird stand before Spike. Said bounty hunter felt his right eye twitching the whole time as she sung, holding his hands on the edges of the bench tightly til his knuckles turned white. But he calmed down as her singing was subdued.

"Listen", Spike sighed in defeat. "I know friendship is magic and all, but I can't say that I and Twilight, you, or anyone else are...friends. I just know you all like for,what, 2 days?"

"And we know you for almost a week!", Pinkie Pie piped giddily. "We can be friends, Spike. Just because you are the last angel doesn't mean we will exclude you-"

"Stop with this angel bullshit already!", he roared to her and slammed on the desk harshly. Pinkie jumped back at his outburst, her smile disappeared and looking at him scared. The bounty hunter's fire burned down quickly and felt a knot in his stomach. Somehow seeing her scared made him feel really disturbed.

"I'm sorry, Pinkie Pie", he apologized and regretted getting hot-headed again. The pony nodded carefully and turned away from him, lowering her head unhappily. Spike hold his face in a palm, realizing how bad the situation turned to, and breathed frustrated. "Why is it that everyone thinks I am an angel, let alone the last? I neither have wings nor do I look divine at any way, you can all see that. So why?"

"Because...", Pinkie Pie whispered and turned her head to the bounty hunter, her eyes giving a sad pout. "It's been told in the tale of Andromeda that..."

Spike removed his hand and blinked at the pony. "Andromeda?"

* * *

**To be continued**

/AN:Yeah, sorry if the "Friendship" lyrics sound crappy, I ain't much of a songwriter. If you have a better one, I will replace them any time.


	8. Session γ : Elegy of truth, part 3

/AN: Now about 20% more Bebop!/

**Session γ : Elegy of truth – Part 3**

* * *

"So let me get this straight", Spike said to Pinkie Pie who was trailing beside him. The pony's mood got the better again and Spike regarded her irritated while crossing his arms. "A few millennia ago some angels waged war against each other?"

"Uh-huh!", the pink earth pony nodded exited, grinning madly at him.

"In _space_?", he added.

"Uh-huh!", came the nod.

"Then on Mars something called Andromeda blew up, killing all the angels, and for some reasons you ponies appeared?", he went on.

"Uh-huh!", came the nod.

"And just because you found me in that piece of junk of a vessel which said that I sleep almost 2000 years makes me an angel!", the bounty hunter finished,

"Yeah!", Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily and bounced up and down among Spike randomly. "See, you're an angel!"

Spike was getting more pissed by the pony's randomness, but then he registered her last expression. He contemplated about it and whispered: "Maybe..."

Pinkie Pie stopped and landed beside him. She looked at him frowning and asked: "Maybe?"

"Never mind that", he shrugged the thought off and waved his hand.

"Com'on, you can tell me! I can keep secrets like nopony around and I keep my promises!", the pink earth pony nudged him, trying to win his trust.

"Well",Spike looked away, considering letting his secret slip out. He never trusted anyone about telling himself more. In his line of work, giving other people private information might be a really dumb move. He knew Jet was trying to have everything in control, Faye would just back stab him, as usual, and there was Ed. Spike's eyes darted to Pinkie and mustered her critically. She reminded him too much of Ed: the childish attitude, the randomness, the view that everything was just fun... the last thing the pony needed was a degree in IT to fill the profile. Still, that would be an argument to tell to, wouldn't it? Her attempts to become friends with him didn't appear to possess any selfish reasons but for the sake becoming friends! The pink pony didn't look like she would screw him over, she was radiating laughter, sprinkles and cotton candy all over. And she gave him something to eat...

"I'll tell you once I have something else to wear", Spike promised to Pink Pie and spectated his trousers. "Man, look how fretted and stained it already is!"

Pinkie Pie squealed and raised her hoof to him: "Okay! That's a Pinkie promise, right?"

Spike looked at her oddly and shook the hoof with an annoyed "Yeah, whatever."

* * *

They went their way to the Everfree Forest in a slow trot. Pinkie Pink rambled on and on, filling him with everything he should know. While her endless talking made Spike's ears almost pop out, the pony gave him some vital information about ponies in general and this world called Equestria. Apparently the ponies were ruled by two princesses. One ruled over the day, the other watched over the night. The latter one seemed to have gone nutty and wanted to bring in eternal night, and was then stopped by the other princess who also was her sister. The rebelling princess was trapped over a whole millennium in the moon. Then she broke free last year, kidnapped the other princess and nearly brought in eternal night all over Equestria. But Pinkie Pie along her friends managed to stop her with a weapon called the "Elements of Harmony". And now Twilight Sparkle was ordered by Princess Celestia, that was the other princess' name, to learn about _friendship_ as much as possible, because apparently it was the very force which triggered the weapon's power.

While the whole story sounded really cheesy, somehow Spike believed the little pony. Neither would Pinkie Pie fill him in with half-truths nor was it part of the filly's fantasy just like this Andromeda tale. It would explain the ponies' obsession with friendship, since, hell, who would say no to any powerful weapon? Maybe not the ponies around here, but this Princess Celestia sounded fishy. Hearing this made him raise more questions, but he remained silent during the trip. He didn't care a thing about this world, he wanted to get back to his own world as soon as possible.

As they reached the Everfree Forest, Pinkie Pie's tail suddenly twitched.

"Oh, oh!", Pinkie Pie looked at her tail petrified and craned her head around nervously.

"What is it?", Spike asked, getting agitated by her change of behavior.

"It's my tail! My twitch-twitchy tail!", Pinkie Pie shouted at him frazzled out and showed her behind to the human to emphasize it. "Twitche-twitch!Twitche-twitch!"

"Yeah, I can see that...", the bounty hunter muttered and kicked some dust in disinterest.

"It means something's gonna fall down!", she expressed in fear and jumped into the next bush. Her azure eyes left to be seen were locking on Spike. "Look for cover!"

"Hm?",the bounty hunter turned his back to the pony and looked up in the sky. "But I see no clou-"

Before he knew, something dashed into his torso and Spike yelped out of surprise as he fell on the dirt. His eyes darted up and he witnessed a really angry fueled Twilight standing on his rips. "Got you!"

"Now look at that", the bounty hunter grinned at her mischievous. "_Somepony_ really did fell. How did you know that, Pinkie? You weren't planning all this, were you?"

"Oh stop being so coco in a loco! It's my Pinkie sense!", Pinkie jumped out of the bush onto Spike's rips as well, causing to provoke a dissatisfied grunt."Each different twitch can predict the future and-!"

"This doesn't matter now!", Twilight barked to the random pony and turned her contained anger to the lousy angel. "Let me ask you only one thing, Beta-Spike: What were you trying to do with Pinkie Pie in the Everyfree Forest?"

"Oh, nothing big", Spike tried to shrug, but the ponies sitting on him hindered any movement. "I'd just have repaired the ship, jamming jazz on Jupiter,and hopefully never saw your annoying snooze ever again. Oh, and I'd used Pinkie Pie here as food supply."

"You...you WHAT?", Twilight raised up and gaped at his statement, not willing to comprehend that anypony would be willing eat one of her friends, and especially Pinkie Pie.

Spike scoffed at her, his temper rising once more."Seriously, never heard of the word 'sarcasm' ?", he snorted at her. "I just wanted to get my clothes, dammit! Which for your information are on the ship you guys wrecked up! As about Pinkie Pie: your friend wouldn't have leave me alone even if I tied her up on a tree." Truth was that he planned to tie the pink pony at any random tree of Everfree Forest's entrance, knocked out beforehand of course, but he buried it within his inside chest of dark secrets.

"Something as trivial as this could have wait...",Twilight just huffed irritated.

"But I couldn't wait any longer! Look at my trousers!", Spike growled, loosing his patience. "You maybe got it easy shaking your naked butts around, but I don't!"

The violet unicorn blinked as he said 'naked butts' and turned to the lower side of the bounty hunter. Her tail was brushing Spike's face, tickling his face. The bounty hunter tried to blow the hair away, but much to his dismay his head was getting a mouthful of pony hair. But Twilight ignored it and focused her attention to the trouser.

The trouser Spike wore since he was inside the vessel was beyond repair, tattered and smeared with blood from the last 'tests'. It was filled with holes, and she could see his-

She blushed instantly once realization dawned on her. "I-I see what the problem is", the unicorn muttered, her ears flatted down, and she looked away ashamed.

"Great! Now get your tail of my face! And while your at it, BOTH OF YOU GET OFF ME!", the 'angel' barked at Pinkie and Twilight, causing them to jump off him in reflex. Spike got up instantly and brushed himself from the dirt the ponies' hoofs were rubbing on him.

Twilight tried to get her formal composure and coughed to loose the atmosphere between human and ponies. "Very well,then me and Fluttershy are joining you!"

"Wh-wh-", Fluttershy froze still, he mouth opening and closing silently. She didn't want to go to that big fish, the last experience was enough to hunt her with terrible, terrible nightmares.

"Bah, do as you please!", Spike rolled his eyes and stormed off into the forest. Twilight and Pinkie tried to keep up with his sudden quick pace.

"O-our tea will get cold! Maybe we should..." , the yellow pegasus finally managed to spill her excuse out. But she blinked as she saw that she was alone.

"Hey, you coming or not?", the bounty hunter shouted back at her, causing her to jump. Fluttershy whimpered and galloped towards the group, too scared to be left alone.

* * *

The ponies greeted Zecora first before they followed Spike into the _fiship_ ( Pinkie Pie just invented the word for the Bebop). As they entered the lounge, the 'angel' was no where to be seen. Considering that he was dressing himself up with new clothes, the trio allowed Spike some privacy and made themselves comfortable. While Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy cuddled each other on the longer orange couch, Twilight sat on the smaller one and crossed both for and back legs annoyed. She switched her sitting poses the whole time, showing her dissatisfaction.

"Arrgh, what is taking him so long?", she muttered while clenching her teeth.

"Don't worry Twilight, maybe Spike forgot where his clothes are.", Pinkie Pie quipped, her patient smile a diametric contrast to Twilight's mood. "I know I couldn't remember last time I put the muffins for Derpy's party and had to use cupcakes instead-"

"Ugh", Twilight cringed at that memory. The lesson everypony had that day was never to give the mailpony any cupcakes as tips in future. "Why did we even have to come here? We should've gone to Rarity instead."

"Ehm, I don't think that would be a good idea...", Fluttershy murmured. The yellow pegasus knew that there were some things you shouldn't push on Spike, and that was letting the white unicorn modeling the bounty hunter.

"Why?", Twilight shot her hoofs up to continue her fits: "Rarity definitely can do some uniforms for Beta-Spike. Our dresses of the Great Galloping Gala are proof enough."

"Wait, you telling me you do wear dresses too?", a snaky voice called out behind the pony. "Preposterous!"

Twilight's eyes twitched and growled irritated. She spun around her couch and looked from the pad while letting her hoofs dangle over. Her intention were to let this 'angel' know his place, but the sight made her gape instead. There stood Spike, leaning on the wall of the hallway leading into the chambers, crossing his arms, and giving the ponies a calm look. No longer was he half naked and his tattered trousers were gone. Instead the bounty hunter wore a leisure suite, a blue and flawless one. Under the suit he wore a light yellow shirt, almost the exact color Fluttershy's coat had, with a black tie lying over it. Then the bounty hunter turned his attention to his ankles and was wrapping his sleeves up to his elbow in a slow and elegant movement, not leaving his position. Twilight realized now how slender his appearance was, the clothes clinging on its white and thin limbs like leaves. Without his irritated and boastful attitude the bounty hunter gave a serene aura, calm as a cloudless sky after a raging storm. Almost like an angel...

"What's with that look?", the unicorn's sense to reality turned back and blinked at the question the 'angel' gave her. She hasn't noticed that the bounty hunter was now standing rigid, holding a suitcase in his right hand with a coat folded together draping over it, and gave her a questioning stare.

"N-nothing", Twilight shook her head anxiously, blushing embarrassed for drifting off, and looked away. "We are done here, now let's head back."

"Hang on", Spike said, and stepped forward to the unicorn. His pace were giving a tapping sound coming from his new black boots. "I got to check the ship out first."

"That wasn't part of the clothes collecting!", Twilight shouted at him. She looked up to him with eyes as if she would discipline a dog.

"Oh, don't be such a sissy", the bounty hunter smirked at her. "Or don't you want to find _the treasure_?"

Twilight Sparkle's eyebrows formed a quizzical look. "What treasure?", she asked.

"Somewhere we have a trunk full of treasure looted from a abandoned ship me and my crew found once. I think the content's worth a few million, if you get the drift." Spike craned his head up and scratched his fuzzy hair, thinking out loud: "I've just forgotten where the damn thing is."

"Oh, treasure hunting!", Pinkie Pie squealed and bounced to Twilight, causing both unicorn and bounty hunter to jump up. "Can we hunt Twilight, can we hunt Twilight, pleasepleaseplease?", the earth pony's head squeezed at Twilight's face. Pinkie's pupils grew and sparkled silent pleadings, melting the unicorn's strictness away.

"I don't know, Pink...", Twilight said uncertainly, waging if she should believe Spike's story or not.

"I remember there were a few ancient books in there too...", the bounty hunter muttered.

Her violet ear were perking up. "Let's go, girls!", the unicorn shot up determined and run aimlessly into the hallway. Pinkie Pie followed her in a bouncing pace, shouting: "Wait for meeeeee~".

Spike snickered that the pony fell on his lie again and turned to the opposite direction. He frowned as he saw Fluttershy still sitting on the orange couch.

"What's with you? Would you rather stay poor and miserable?", the bounty hunter asked, feeling a sweat drop curling down his forehead.

"There isn't a treasure around, isn't it?", she questioned him in a calm voice. "You just want to buy yourself time?"

Spike blinked at the pegasus, but then grinned at her amused. "Heh", he chuckled. "I knew there is more behind that cute mane of yours"

"Eeep", Fluttershy gasped and hid her eyes behind her soft pink hair, blushing uncontrollably. Still, worrying about her friends, she tried to regain composure. "W-well, what are you going to do now?"

"Relax, I'm only checking the condition of the ship out", Spike replied, still smiling. He set his suitcase beside the couch Twilight Sparkle sit on and headed to the stairs leading upstairs.

"But didn't you say it's a wreck now?", Fluttershy continued asking, and stepped off the cushion to follow the bounty hunter.

"From the outside,yeah", Spike nodded. "But I need to look if the internal hardware is still working and if we've got enough juice."

"Orange juice?", Fluttershy blinked.

"Gasoline", the bounty hunter sighed, not giving a damn if she knew that word. "Might also be a good chance to figure out what happened to my crew."

"Ehm, Spike", the pegasus tried to explain. "About that...". She stopped, thinking about how to convince Spike that he was the very last angel. She didn't want him to get into needless danger.

"Pinkie Pie already told me about Andromeda. She can be quite eloquent", Spike assured her chuckling. "I think it's a bunch of horse apples, pardon the pun. If I am the last angel, then Santy Claus is a three headed reindeer."

Fluttershy stopped, waiting until Spike was at a greater distance."Umm, actually...", she muttered, her voice barely audible. "He has two heads only..."

* * *

Spike and Fluttershy reached the cockpit, but to the pegasus' surprise Spike turned to a huge round suppressed metal bar on the wall. It was much than the other doors she found with her friends, making her assume which would lead them to the 'inner hardware' Spike talked about. The bounty hunter turned a cross-leveler which was in the middle and opened the gate.

Spike entered the hole with his legs and his head turned to Fluttershy. "Wait here and make sure our friends are distracted long enough.", he ordered the pony. Fluttershy blinked and squirmed afraid, fearing that she maybe has done a bad mistake. Spike knew she felt unconformable and smiled in sympathy. "Don't worry, it won't take long. It's a promise."

With that the bounty hunter dived into the hole and disappeared. Fluttershy didn't leave the spot, frozen at the sounds the walls gave off. She even heard the galloping and bouncing of her friends, but relieve washed over her as the sound of them deceased quickly. She remained that pose for Celestia knew how long, and then she shrieked as the bounty hunter came out of the small entrance. His face and hands were smudged with dark dirt, but the suit remained clean surprisingly.

"W-well?", she asked, gulping.

"Everything's fine from here.", Spike answered. He took a blanket out of his jacket pocket and wished his face and hands clean. "The power engine is stable, though I wonder how bats managed to nest themselves in the centrifuges." He interrupted himself as he considered not to tell the pegasus about the piles of rotten cadavers. He went his way to the stairs the stairs. "Anyway, the ship should have enough juice to run the computers."

"Gasoline, right?", Fluttershy guessed while smiling sheepishly as she trotted behind him.

"No, electricity", Spike rolled his eyes. "Man, your lingo needs some serious update."

Her smile fell and Fluttershy felt like being caught. "Oh, I'm sorry."

The bounty hunter craned his head over his shoulder and glared at Fluttershy: "Please don't apologize, I hate that."

Both pony and human were back at the lounge and Spike took the opportunity to pick up a square shaped flat device which lay around."Now, let's see what the database has for offer." Spike connected the thing with a cable and turned it on. As a sound came up Fluttershy never heard of, the bounty hunter clapped the curious thing open like a shell and revealed on one surface an enlightened display, on the other many black buttons with letters printed on them. The yellow pony bit her lip anxiously as the bounty hunter blew dust away and then slammed onto various buttons with his fingers in incredible speed. The display gave many different pictures in weird forms way, completely alien to the pony in their design. Suddenly a big red cross spread over the surface.

"Dammit!", Spike snarled and clenched his teeth.

Fluttershy sweat and felt her heart race like there was no tomorrow. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't have any connection to the database!", the bounty hunter grumbled and leaned his face to his hand. "The internet seems to be cut-off."

"What's an 'internet'?", the pony asked, blinking at this new word.

"A virtual network we hum- 'angels' used for communication and information transport throughout the universe. Wait", Spike paused himself and contemplated about it. Then he smacked his hand over his brow and replied: "Oh of course it doesn't work, satellites don't exist in this world, we are talking about alternative realities here."

Fluttershy gave the bounty hunter a confused look and stuttered:"A...Alte-"

"Maybe the auto pilot knows more", Spike interrupted her and raged like a berserk over the buttons. After one hell of button smashing an artificial female voice drone from the device, causing Fluttershy to jump out of surprise:

"Warning: Full auto-pilot on cruise mode 16-6. Routes cannot be changed once confirmed." Spike remained quiet as he continued to look for clues. As he was finished, the female voice returned:

"Status: Confirmed to have reached goal. This ship has now landed on planet: **Earth**. Date: 13th July, **3978**_ AD_."

"What the hell was Jet doing the whole time! Even the main computer is trashed up!", Spike shouted enraged and gripped the small machine and clenched his fingers.

"Wh-what's wrong?", Fluttershy whimpered, took a few steps back from the 'angel'.

"Apparently this ship thinks it landed on Earth, the planet my species came from. I am trapped in some sort of pony universe, and this stupid machine believes it's Earth! Earth, of all places!", Spike growled, but more to himself than to the pony. "And again 3978! It's becoming a sick joke now!" His fingers stuck so deeply into the machine that the display's light blacked out. Spike calmed himself down and let go of the device which fell on with a hard CLANK on a floor.

"No choice, Fluttershy.", the bounty hunter sighed and got up. "I gotta look for them."

As he turned, he didn't find the yellow pegasus, but an violet colored and his least favorite unicorn. "Looking for what?", Twilight Sparkle asked with a stern frown. Fluttershy covered behind the unicorn's behind scared.

"Oh, ehm...", Spike sweat dropped nervously and scratched the back of his head while looking sideways. "The treasure?"

"Beta-Spike...", the unicorn growled impariently.

"Alright, you got me", Spike shrugged half-apologizing. "The thing is-"

"I FOUND IT I FOUND IT I FOUND IT!", out of nowhere Pinkie Pie bounced between both ponies and human and squealed exited.

"What?", Twilight and Spike asked in union.

"I found the treasure!", Pinkie said with a huge grin on her muzzle.

"H-how did you...", Spike stammered while color drained from his face."There really is a treasure?" Could Jet and Faye have kept something really valuable away from him? He wouldn't trust the mechanical-former policeman to be this cunning, so Faye was the only one left. Why was this woman always hiding stuff from the others? Alright, Spike hid a lobster once, but he vowed to himself that-

"Yeah! Com'on!", the pink earth pony threw him out of his inner debate and dashed away to the private quarters. The others followed her and stopped before a metal door. Spike blinked, remembering where it led to.

"This is...", he muttered, but couldn't finish his sentence as Pinkie Pie threw a huge trunk before him. It wasn't exactly those kind of trunks from old pirate movies, but it was close looking like one, dusted and made of light brown wood.

"Look here!", the pink pony said proudly. "I found it inside a lock hidden under a bench hidden in the cupboard which was sealed and..:"

"Alright, we get it, Pinkie", Twilight said patiently. "What's inside the trunk?"

"I don't know, my Pinkie senses were giving a doozie on this one, so I wanted to open it with everypony here, in any case if it blows up."

"That's nice of you. Wait-", the unicorn's eyes widened at Pinkie's statement, but it was to late for further interference: With a precise kick, Pinkie Pie opened the trunk with a loud SNAP. Everypony took cover out of reflex, but nothing happened. While Spike kept distance, the ponies surveyed the inner content carefully.

"Ohhhh...", Pinkie's azure eyes became bigger and snatched with her hoofs a golden arm bracelet out."I wanna keep this!" Twilight just nodded absently, and then gave a puzzled frown to the inner trunk.

"What 's this?", the unicorn's head dived into it and came back with a long brown letter in her mouth. She trotted to Spike, who was looking agitated to the trunk for some reason.. "It'sh fur 'u.", she muffled.  
The bounty hunter blinked and snatched the letter up. He examined it and...indeed, there was a writing on it, with the simple address: 'For Spike Spiegel', written in poor formed letters. He ripped the letter open and pulled something out which resembled a huge domino stone."This is a video", he said studying it the black chunk.

"What's that?", Twilight asked him, craning her head curiously.

"Think of it as a shaft which runs many picture in light speed to display movement and sounds", Spike said absently as he studied it further.

"I see...", her thirst for knowledge rose up, wanting to learn anything about this _video_, where did it came from, how was it crafted and did worked, how it could be applied to pony society. But she subdued it quickly, knowing that the situation was of different matter. "So what would be on it?"

"Gotta find out", Spike shrugged and went through the same door Pinkie Pie went through before.

It was a very small chamber with very little surface area. Actually, aside the bathroom this was the smallest room of the whole ship, purposely selected for the least liked bounty hunter of the crew for the satisfaction of the others. A cupboard and locked was on the other end of the room, and a fair sized bed was taking most of the space. On the bed lay a cube with a display on it. Spike sat on the bed and put the video in a slot installed onto the cube. The ponies accompanied him on the cushions, Pinkie Pie was even snuggling up to the moody bounty hunter. Said bounty hunter twitched with his eyes, but he tried to suppress any further outbursts to figure out what was on the movie. The cube flared up to live, and millions of gray spots were buzzing on the whole screen.

"I hope this is on...", a voice came out of the cube, catching the ponies off guard. Spike slammed his fist onto the cube, and the gray scales died off, replaced with a woman. A human woman.

"Woah, another angel!", Pinkie chirped and her eyes bulged out in excitement. "And she's pretty!"

Indeed, pretty she was. A immaculate young face of a Greek marvel statue with velvet and smooth hair falling from both sides held by an orange headband. Aside the face what stood out were the lush breasts forming big boobs the ponies were never aware of in their current experience with human anatomy. The woman was appearing almost naked, only a short golden vest and hot-pants covered the most private parts.

"Faye...", Spike whispered, audible to everypony else. His chocolate red eyes were glittering with familiarity, and the bounty hunter couldn't help but smirk a little. After all what happened, he was glad to see some human again, even if it was just recorded, coming from the least woman he could stand. Faye was sitting on the same bed everypony was currently on, crossing her legs to a meditative pose. Her arms were pillars settling over her knees and her face gave a serious expression. Her dark jade eyes were unreadable.

And then after a long silence, she began:

* * *

/AN: "Adieu" tuning in/

* * *

"Hello, Spike. If you see this message, then halle-fuckin'-lulia, you're back from the dead, and I'm gone or worse. I was worrying you'd loose your memories in cryogenic hyphenation like I did, so I'd figure I should let you know that I somehow existed in your pathetic life."

She ruffled her hair with a frustrated huff and continued:

"Things just changed so fast, I really can't make anything out of it. After you killed Vicious, shit hit the fan all over Mars, and it spread towards the other colonies. At first those were only simple street wars, but they turned to civil wars, and then they turned to world wars. Apparently the Syndicate had their hands everywhere, even in the higher courts of world governments. Me and Jet were lucky finding you in the vessel in some secret militia hideout, put in cryogenic freeze. And now we're on the run from bounty hunters and syndicate scum. _They_ probably wanted you as their next leader and tried to keep you alive. You owe me big for this, after that stunt of yours. "

Spike frowned. So it was neither Jet or Faye putting him in the cryostat. But why-

"I'd imagine you'd ask: "But why the hell didn't we put you out of the freeze?" Jet didn't dare to free you from the hyphenation, he said your wounds were too great for taking the risk. Added to the other wounds of yours a sudden interference would have caused you getting a stroke beyond recovery. We couldn't find any hospital for treating you, all physicians looked like wiped out of existence. Even that doc' of yours vanished. So we had to take the long routine and wait until your wounds are healed up completely, and that would take a whole century or less probably."

Faye looked sideways, unsure if she should go on. Her eyes were clouded in sorrow. After a while she pressed on:

"That's why I am making this record. This is the same VHS I used for recording my own childhood. Don't read to much into it, I just don't need it any longer. You were right when you told me: "Forget the past, because it doesn't matter." And that's why..."

Suddenly her eyes started to water as she blinked several times. "That's why I'm leaving you and everything else here. This isn't another 'Run away with all the money and come back broke' leaving you, this is really it. I just can't take it any longer. The hunting, the hiding, your almost dead body rotting in ice before me, this is too much. I want a life, Spike, I want to have a future. But you only could stare into the past. You have cast any hope away when you headed after Vicious. For me, you are nothing more than a shadow of my past."

She realized that tears trailed down her face, and wished them with her arm away in anger. She breathed deep and slowly not to hiccup before to go on: "We are heading back to Earth. I convinced Jet to look for Ed and Ein. There were rumors around the merchants and cargo haulers about a comet has erased Mars of all life forms. No one knows any details, 'cept for the name they gave it. I think they called it "Andromeda"..."

A sudden gasp came from the viewers. The biggest one came from Spike himself. His eyes widened, trembling, thinking off the tale Pinkie Pie told him, and felt like the world around him shattered to crumbled. There were so many hints about what happened: The talking ponies, flourishing vivid nature in pastel colors, the cryogenic vessel, the tales, the computer, but he didn't want to accept any of this, excusing himself with some half-arsed irrational explanation to keep his world together. And now, this video, this very statement from the woman who was a pain in the butt to him cut the last invisible veil off which held everything together. Now reality hit him deep into the very core.

"It doesn't matter really. After we brought Ed and Ein into safety, I'm gone. I will probably try my luck with that cowboy double of yours. He is a moron like you, but hey, he's got money. Or whatever, I just want to get away from you. If it's taking more than a century for you to wake up, I really hope you've lost your memories, or else you might feel what I do through now: The feel of abandonment, nothing left to return to. No matter how much you deserve this, I don't want to see you suffer any more. You should be free and live like anyone else. On the other hand, you know what they say: You're gonna carry that _weight_ ."

Faye looked now directly into the glass which divided past and present, as if she looked into Spike's eyes. Despite tears streamed again, she smiled relieved and winked at him.

"So... see you, Space Cowboy." The video ended with an abrupt stop, the grey scales returning taking the screen over. The ponies were so touched by this that they all cried. Fluttershy hid her face into Twilight's mane and sobbed beyond control. The unicorn stared blankly into space as tears sprinkled her violet eyes. Pinkie was crying the strongest, fountains of water pouring out of the azure eyes and tried to sniff into the bed blanket.

"My god", Spike whispered, shocked, really shocked. He didn't cry like his equine companions, he only stared into the screen and tried to comprehend anything what Faye just told him. Then, acceptance washed over him. "I'm back."

With wide eyes he turned to Twilight Sparkle who returned it with a sad gaze. "This is Earth. All the time..."

He looked down to his own hands, which were shaking. "They finally...really...did it."

"Spike", Twilight's head was getting heavy from witnessing this message of the past, and didn't know how to conform the 'last angel'. She still felt Fluttershy sobbing in hiccups, and put a hoof on her head to stroke her rosa mane.

Then, the bounty hunter blinked several times, shook his hands and grunted: "Tch, good riddance."

"Huh?", the unicorn was perplexed by his sudden paradigm shift, and stared at him confused.

Spike shoved the crying Pinkie Pie from himself and got out of the bed."We're done here. Let's return to _fillylisation."_

"Wait, Spike!", Twilight Sparkle shouted, but he already left the chambers. She hopped out of the cushions and galloped after him. She cut him from entering the lounge, making a defensive position.

"How can you be so cold? She was your friend!", she scolded him, emotionally ruffled up and tears were pricking her in her eyes.

"Don't mix things up", Spike responded, his features stoic and his eyes of pure ice. "We were associates, nothing more. Temporary allies for survival, not like you bunches glittering around rainbow and sparkles."

"But, but...", the unicorn stuttered as the bounty hunter went past her in casual steps. "This is all you want to do? Just shrug it off and walk away?"

"Exactly", Spike answered, taking the suitcase he left in the lounge and dressed himself up with the gray coat laying on it. "You heard her, toots: It's all in the past now, so it doesn't matter. Just forget it, and move on."

At that, he left the ship, without looking back. Twilight started as he went away, feeling even more upset by Spike's reaction. She turned back to Faye's chambers, only to find Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy before her. Both were looking taken aback, even Pinkie dropped her happy face.

"He didn't mean that, did he, Twilight?", Fluttershy whispered, her Latin at ends.

"I...", Twilight darted her eyes back to the exit. "I don't know..."

* * *

The ponies caught up with Spike as he walked through the Everfree Forest back to Ponyville. Everypony remained quiet, feeling a tense atmosphere around the bounty hunter. He kept his cold stare without any disturbances just as if it froze to a brick, his one hand in a coat pocket, the other tightened around the case. His knuckle was white as a corpse.

"It's getting dark...", Twilight broke finally the silence as they were at the exit of the forest. Spike said nothing, dropped his suitcase and walked away from the ponies. "Hey, where are you going?"

He stopped, his back turned to the equine followers. "I'll take a walk. I need some fresh air. Think you can take my case with you?"

Pinkie Pie dropped her anxious gaze and replaced it with a pout."But Spike, you wanted to tell me something! You made a Pinkie-promise!"

"Sorry, realizing that you are the very last human in existence kinda breaks it", he replied without showing his face. The pink pony looked down hurt and nodded sadly.

"Fine", Twilight huffed. "But don't be out for too long."

Spike waved with his right hand to express a silent 'yes' and went his way."Just, answer me this. Please", the unicorn trotted a few steps to the bounty hunter. "Who's Vicious?"

Spike halted again. This time, he craned his head a little to look over his shoulder. He gave Twilight a glare the pony would never forget.

"The devil only I could slay", he answered darkly and vanished into the night.

* * *

/AN "Call me, Call me" tuning in/

* * *

Fluttershy entered her little cottage. Her heart hurt so much from all this, she wished she never went with the others to that horrible ship. She trotted to the green couch of hers, and landed with a POMF on the cushion. A bunny crawled out of a hole and bounced to the exhausted pegasus.

"Oh,hello Angel", Fluttershy smiled, but froze as she had an association with the bunny's name. Tears streamed down her eyes without her realizing it. Angel blinked shocked and jumped up to her mistress to cuddle to her. Fluttershy returned it, closed her eyes and started weeping, alone in her cottage.

Spike paced around the edges of Ponyville. His coat fluttered from the sudden breeze, his fuzzy hair flaring. He couldn't think, he couldn't feel, all he could was to see. With one eye he saw just the moon , no longer damaged as he remembered back then, but a completely restored pale globe which shined upon the blue world of Equestria. With the other he saw... many things, things he wished to stop see.

Pinkie Pie entered her house in a not very Pinkie-like gesture. Silently and without any smile, she trotted to her bedroom, thinking about how she could bring Spike out of his gloom. She was taken aback by her crocodile pet which bit into her tail. She cracked a half smile as she hugged her reptile friend. Then she felt her Pinkie-senses coming up again. Her heart ached and pumped twice as fast as she usually had during a sugar rush. It was a really rare twitch, but the pink pony knew what it meant: Somepony has lost something he or she cared for deeply.

The first things Spike saw were familiar to him already. A street shoot out, his back turned to someone he considered a brother, a blonde woman clad in leather playing billiard in a bar, their night together. He was standing in a street valley, holding a bosom of roses, smoking his last cigar. She didn't came. He walked away, a rose falling into the wet pavement. Then he shot his enemies dead with a machine gun hidden in his flowers, getting hit during the progress. A grenade clutched to his left hand, he grinned as he bled to death.

Rarity's right eye twitched uncontrollably as she stood to before her latest work. It was beautiful, magnificent, fabulous, but...

"ARGH!", she screeched frustrated and threw her latest dress into the corner heartlessly with her magic. "It's not PERFECT!" A pile of the most significant dresses of Ponyville, maybe even of whole Equestria, was building up in the corner. It didn't matter to Rarity to her dismay. She wanted to create the impossible, something the world has never seen. Something that this angel will never be.

"Yes, never be", Rarity muttered to herself as she started the next attempt. "That brute can't be even an angel. Angels are benevolent, immaculate, perfect! I'll show him. I will show him what perfection means!"

The door behind her opened, causing the white unicorn to jump up.

"Sis", a smaller white unicorn with a double colored mane was standing at the door frame with a small blanket around her back, a tired and concerned look spread on her features.

"My, Sweetie Belle, why aren't you asleep yet?", Rarity tried to ask in her sweetest voice, but croaked instead.

"I can't sleep while you are up all the night!", Sweetie Belle wept and fumbled on her watery eyes. "Ever since that...guy came here, you are here all the time, making dresses and only dresses. You even missed your weekend go out with Fluttershy."

Rarity blinked and forced a smile. "It's alright, dear. Your sister has just a lot work to do. See?" She went to her stitching machine and started her next dress. Sweetie Belle sighed and went to her sister. She began to sing: "_Hush now, quiet now, it's time to lay your sleepy head_". Not in her usual brass voice, but a soft dedicated one with love. Rarity's eyelashes closed slowly and she crumbled onto the desk and fell asleep. Sweetie Belle sighed relieved, put her blanket over the bigger unicorn and gave her a nuzzle on her muzzle. "'Night, sis."

As Spike walked through the endless forest of planted apple trees, he realized that his view to the past has changed. Now new pictures, sounds and tastes streamed through his eye. He remembered now. The bulky mechanical with the outstanding sideburns, controlling the ship, cooking their meal. The many missions both went through just to have something to eat. A woman pregnant of thin flasks filled with drugs shooting his lover before reaching the sky. Eco-terrorists trying to turn mankind into apes. Then Ein joined the team after being freed from laboratory experiments.

Sweating heavily and getting visions from insomnia and hunger, Applejack buckled the next apple tree precisely into the center out of routine. The apples fell down like rain drops. Breathing harshly, she turned to the next tree. But instead she met a big red colt, his stoic eyes falling to the orange pony and chewing a thread of hay lazily.

"Out of the way, Macintosh", Applejack growled, pushing her hoofs to the ground threateningly.

"Or what?", he asked calmly, his hay rolling to the other side of the muzzle.

"Then Celestia forgiv' me for hurtin' ye!", the pony snarled back, and took a step forward.

Big Macintosh looked down to Applejack with unreadable eyes, but then shrugged lazily. "Ah brought ye some pie."

The pony's tired jade eyes blinked surprised and darted to the ground. Indeed, there was Grannie Pie's most famous apple pie on a blanket with a bottle of milk standing aside. Applejack looked up again and the red colt was gone. She chuckled weakly and decided to take a break.

As she enjoyed her night meal, someone walked past her.

"Hey, Applejack", greeted the someone.

"Howdy, Spike", Applejack returned the greet absently. It took her a few bites to process what just happened. She spit her chewed sweets out and looked shocked around her. Nothing but apple trees was there.

"Oh boy, hallucinations keep gettin' worse", the earth pony muttered as she shook her head and rubbed her eyes."Goshdamn angels." She tried to eat her pie once more, but she has lost her appetite.

Faye joined the team, pretending to be a gypsy. She was just trouble and more unpredictable than a weather storm. Last but not least Ed came, young but probably the most intelligent human in the whole universe. All held together for some reason despite each of their bias. And the adventures were getting greater. Hunting bounties, surviving the syndicate, and messing around the universe, that was a life.

But the past caught up with him.

Rainbow Dash screamed as she woke up. Her head dashed up and her eyes darted in all directions, her lungs pulling air heavily. She had a nightmare again, the same nightmare which haunted her for days. Getting beaten by that...jerk! Shaking, the blue pegasus flew to her bathroom and looked into the mirror. She was a real mess, she was nearly as pale as Rarity! All that because of this jerk-

"Look at you", she snarled at her mirror self. "You turned into a total wimp. That's so not awesome! You gotta protect your honor! And the honor of the others!" Her wings flared up, and color returned to her coat. "Tomorrow will be the day of my revenge!"

Julia came back from the dead. And as it looked like there was hope, she died again, in his arms. There was no turning back now. Revenge demanded justice. The present needed to defeat the past. And before he knew it, everything was gone. With a bang.

Twilight sighed as she opened the door. Spike's suitcase, though looking not that big a really heavy object, floated through after she entered and fell with a thud near the door.

"Hey, you're back!", Spike twirped as he run down the stairs. His smile dropped as he saw someone was missing. "Say, Twilight, where's Spike?"

"Beta-Spike?", she said with an edge in her voice, slightly irritated that the baby dragon didn't hold to the official label. "I don't know. Quite frankly I don't care where he is off to now."

'Alpha'-Spike frowned concerned. "You both got at your hairs again?"

"Not really", the pony sniffed. Her eyes were red from crying as she looked at the dragon. "Oh Celestia, this is worse than the time down the abyss. Much worse."

Spike crossed its arms together with an annoyed glare. "I told you, give it time."

"Yeah, maybe you are right..." , Twilight sighed and headed to her bed. "I'll be going to sleep. If Beta-Spike is back, just make sure he takes his medicine. He was braking down during one of the tests."

The dragon gazed up to Twilight as she climbed the stairs and shrugged."If you say so", he muttered and trotted to the library.

The unicorn felt so tired. All her thirst for learning more about the pre-Celestian age turned to dust as she saw that video. Archeology was always one of her fun topics, discovering old ancient worlds, finding out how ancient ponies lived and what their ethics were, and most importantly: Possessing emotional distance to lost civilizations. But now, everything changed. She should be glad that Beta-Spike finally accepted the truth, but instead she felt even more upset to this whole situation. She kinda had sympathy for his mood swings now.

As she was in her sleeping room, she gazed outside the window. On a big hill, he stood there. The moon rose behind him and shined upon his sole appearance, his coat fluttering. It was almost Princess Luna made an emphasis on the angel's fate.

"Spike...", she whispered, and felt her eyes being moistened by tears once more. She fell onto her bed and cried into sleep.

* * *

The light within the treehouse died out, but Spike didn't noticed it. The bounty hunter was too deep into his past as he pierced his stare upon Ponyville. Then he turned his attention to the item he held in his one palm. It was a small pink pin wheel which Spike found on the deck as he exited the ship. For some reason, he took it along. His one eye remembered. It was the last gift Ed gave him before she left the Bebop, to return to her lousy father-in-law. He didn't really understood first what this meant, for he was the best into decrypting symbols. With a soft breath he blew into the wheel, causing it to run. Now he understood. His other hand dived into his inner coat pocket, fumbling after something. Then he felt the cold metal he sought for. It was time to end this, once and for all...

"My, I haven't seen you around here before", a sleek voice said behind him. He was surprised, but he didn't show it. He turned to the source of the sound, and found a velvet blue mare standing before him. She looked different compared to the other ponies he saw. She was slightly taller, and had both wings and a horn. What kind of pony was that now?

"And you are?", Spike asked calmly, his eyes still stern cold.

The pony blinked at him, off guard at the question. "You don't recognize me?"

"Listen, missy", the bounty hunter snapped at her. "I just happen to be awake for like two days and need to get used to the fact that this whole planet is overrun by talking critters, so please excuse me my lack of knowledge."

The velvet unicorn-pegasus remained silent and contemplated about it, her wings twitching nervously. Then a light came up and she smiled at the human. "Ah, I know. You must be that angel everypony is talking about!", she answered, "I thought you were just a rumor."

Spike scoffed at her: "Ugh, I became the next conspiracy theory?"

"Quite", she snickered. Her azure eye glowed with curiosity as she took a step forward. "What's your name?"

"Does it really matter?", he asked her coolly and turned his back to her. Again the pony was taken aback, but smiled again.

"Oh, well, it's quite alright, you don't need to.", she waved her hoof reassuringly. She inspected him up and down."Funny, seeing you so close for the first time just feels...nostalgic. I completely forgot what your kin looked like."

"Wait", Spike craned his head over his shoulder. "You know me?"

"Oh yes", she nodded approvingly. "I was a very small foal back when, so I don't remember much...but you are a...a human, is that it?"

Spike spun around, rushed to the mare and gripped her by the shoulders."Who are you?", he growled, a flash of despair in his eyes.

"And who are you?", the pony asked him, trying to stay brave.

The bounty hunter blinked and tried to regain his cold composure. He coughed embarrassed and replied:"I'm Spike Spiegel."

"I am Princess Luna, the one who raises the moon." the pegasus-unicorn answered.

"Luna", he mulled about the name until it clicked. "I heard about you. Weren't you the nutjob who tried to swallow the sun or something?"

Feeling a little hurt by his rude statement, she forced to keep her smile on the muzzle. "W-well, yeah, I kinda did, didn't I? But...it's alright now. After my sister's student stopped me with her friends, I managed to overcome my jealousy. Now, ehm, I'm good again."

Spike ogled at her bemused."Whatever", he waved his free hand and walked past her. "Great to know you and all, but could you please just go away? I want to be alone right now..."

Concern filled Luna's eyes. "What's wrong?", the princess asked as she neared Spike.

"Are you trying to piss me off or are you really that daft? What does it look like to you, your _neighness_?", Spike snarled, loosing his cool. He spun around, causing Luna to take a step back frightened, and widened his arms to rant frustrated: "Look at me! I am the last human. Period. There I was, being at the verge of dying, happily I might add, but noooo, they put me in some ice tub and blew themselves up afterward! Goddamn maniacs!" He stomped the earth in emphasize. "And now I am awake, what happens? I am surrounded by talking mammals and dragons, thinking I am an angel! You catching the irony here now?"

Luna felt several reactions shot through her: Indignation and anger for his rudeness. But the pity of the human's tragedy and the sympathy overweight it.

"I...", she stammered, and looked down saddened. "I'm sorry about that, Spike, I...won't disturb your privacy any further."

As she was about to fly away, Spike stopped her:"Wait." The princess turned to the human and saw him crouching before her. She registered regret in his eyes. "Sorry I snarled at you, I didn't meant to. It's just...hard for me processing it..."

Luna cracked a smile, still shaken up."Don't...don't worry, I understand", she murmured. "I know this feeling... of loneliness." As she said this, a silent tear fell from her eye. Spike saw it and frowned.

Both remained silent, remaining on the same pose. Then, Luna's head shot up, her ears fluttering as something clicked in her."I know how to make you feel better!", she said exited and turned her behind to Spike. "Hop on my back."

Spike was staring at her confused. "Uhhh, you sure about this?"

"More than ever!", she squealed, her wings flaring out to urge him.

Spike sighed and put all his hope not to crush the pony's back. "Now what?", he muttered, feeling awkward sitting on the princess.

"_Fly me to the moon_", Luna began to hum and flow into the night. Spike remembered those lyrics. He was surprised anypony would know those exact tunes and words! But a bigger surprise was washing over him as he realized that they were already several 1000 miles above Equestria. And higher. And higher. The bounty hunter's eyes widened. "HEY WAIT-"

In a blink of an eye they reached the moon.

* * *

/AN: "Cosmos" tuning in/

* * *

"Ehm", Luna looked at the bounty hunter's antics puzzled. "Is something wrong, Spike?"

The bounty hunter held his mouth and nose shut with his hands and tried not to breathe. Irritated by the stupidity of the question, he opened his mouth to answer, taking a breath. Suddenly he realized that he was breathing air. He paused himself, as surprised as he woke up around several talking ponies for the first time. Frazzled he looked around. He was on the moon for sure, silver gray surface, those typical holes, and the recognition that he saw the whole planet called Earth, or as it was called Equestria now, before him.

"I...I can breathe? But we're on the moon!", he shouted at Luna panicked, pointing his fingers in aimless directions.

Luna blinked and blushed embarrassed. "Oh, ehm, well, I put a protection spell here, you can breath air in my realm without any problems."

Mulling over it the bounty hunter calmed himself down."Magic again", he growled softly, putting his hands into his pockets. "I really can't believe all this mumbo-jumbo..."

Luna was shocked hearing this. "What's not to believe? That's how my sister revived this world!"

"Sister?", Spike asked her. "You mean Celestia?"

Luna nodded and pointed with her hoof down to the planet. While Spike looked at it, the princess began: "After Andromeda occurred, there was nopony left on this planet or anypony else on the universe. Everything was eradicated, quite literally. When I grew into a filly, my sister told me that she had to put her faith into magic to revive this planet. After that she gifted the ponies and other beings with the power of magic to recreate this world. I put my magic into restoring the moon here." She tapped on the dusty earth and smiled proudly.

Spike was silent for a moment. "You don't remember what happened during Andromeda?", his eyes darted to her.

Luna shook her head apologizing."Sorry, I was really really young, I can't make anything out of it. It's almost like a dream, trying to think so hard about it, and you can only recognize some blurry details."

Ignoring the snort of the bounty hunter she went on: "Ever since I can remember me and my sister were raising the sun and moon over Equestria and watched over our fellow subjects. That's all I know."

"I see", Spike felt the pony was telling the truth and took it for granted. For now. "So why did you rebelled then? You said you were jealous."

Luna jerked up and looked over Spike nervously. Defeated by his calm eyes, she sighed: "Yeah, I was jealous. Jealous of my sister. During the day everypony was awake and praised Celestia as she was the sole goddess. On the night they were all sleeping, ignoring my presence. No one cared for me, I rarely even saw my sister since she was only awake at day. Then I thought: 'If nopony was acknowledging me, then neither should anypony acknowledge _her_!' And then...I...I felt so lonely, Spike...before I knew it, something...evil took over my mind and body, and then Celestia banished me in the moon for so long, leaving me all alone..." Tears streamed down and she started weeping. Spike said nothing and waited patiently. She looked so miserable that he felt like hugging her, but his rational part prevented him. Why did he care so much?

As the moon princess was finished with crying, she hiccuped:"Now, everything is back to normal...but I still feel lonely a little."

"You shouldn't", Spike cut her off.

Luna bolted up. "What did you say?",she asked with red tear stained eyes open.

"I said you shouldn't", Spike repeated flatly. He grinned smugly and shrugged. "Indeed your story is quite touching, but aren't you a little exaggerating here? Seriously, you are the last pers- pony who should feel lonely. See there?", his finger pointed at the planet. "There are at least ponies out there who depend on your protection."

A sad smile curled on Spike's calm features. "Me? I have no one left. The only people who seemed to have cared for me are long gone. I survived mankind for crying out loud! Can you believe that?" He laughed bitterly. For the first time he could ever think off, he started crying while laughing at the black humor fate has. Loosing all his coolness, the human knelt into the moon desert of the moon and slammed his fists into the ground. Laughter turned into a scream of sorrow before the lone planet into the deep space."**YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW EVERYTHING UP!**" His face buried into the moon sands and his crying and screaming went on. "**GODDAMN YOU ALL! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!**" Luna's took several hoofs back, witnessing the human's despair off-guard. Spike felt the shadows of memories he tried to suppress floating to surface again: Jet, Fay, Ed, Ein, all the people he met and came to like, and Julia. All gone. Not even their bodies were left to be buried. He was truly alone. And at the very end of his back head he felt tinges of guilt, that he was responsible for all this. If he never have went for Vicious, none of this would've happened. He would've still been with his crew, hunting for bounties and living the endless dream. And before he knew, the dream was already gone.

_I doomed us all. _

Spike cried for a very long while. He wasn't aware that he stopped then. He wasn't even aware that his arms fell limply to his sides as he stared at Earth once more. Even the land mass has changed, no longer he could recognize the continents which existed in his time. His face contorted into hopelessness. He managed to mutter loud enough:"I don't know what I should do now. There's nothing left for me. I'm... better off dead maybe."

"No!", the bounty hunter felt reality turning back to him and hiss head snapped to the moon princess whose face was revealing distraught."Please don't think that way! It's not true! It's not..." She looked sideways, at a loss of words. She tried to explain carefully: "It's...maybe true that you are the last human. But... you are not alone. You have us. The ponies won't let you down if you open up to them. You are not alone."

Spike blinked at her, his head getting dizzy."You really think so?", he asked her, any smart assery of him gone. As Luna nodded convinced he turned his gaze to the Earth, thinking out loud: " I don't know, this is still all too weird. I have seen a lot of twisted crap in my life, but this...this is really too much. How do you expect this will work out?"

Luna opened her mouth, but closed it again, thinking about a satisfying answer. "I... don't know. But why don't you give it a try? If my sister's student Twilight Sparkle were here, she would tell you that friendship has no bounds."

Spike thought about it. "Friendship, eh?", he sighed defeated. "I don't have many options left, do I?"

"There's always a way, Spike. You just have to believe in things. Maybe you will feel like being in the most beautiful dream anypony could have."

Cringing at the word 'dream', he muttered: "Ugh, I don't know about that last bit". The color on his face returned again, and hope tugged at his heart. He grinned sheepishly. "But hell, why now? I might get used to those ponies. That pink one was even giving me something to eat."

"I'm glad to hear it", the moon princess smiled broadly. She trotted to the bounty hunter who was swtiching to a sitting pose supported by his arms like two pillar. Snuggling up to him and laying her head on his lap, she asked: "Spike?"

"What is it, your _highness_?", the human joked.

"Oh, stop that!", the pony giggled and rolled on her back. Looking up to the bounty hunter, she went on: "I am just wondering: Are we friends now?"

"Maybe", Spike shrugged. "But don't push your luck too much yet. Stuff like this takes time."

The pony nodded. "Alright." She rolled again and remained quiet. Spike was enjoying the view of the planet before him. Unlike Faye he never witnessed what Earth was like, before the hyperspace gateway blew the moon up. Back then Earth was an wasted planet, most of live gone after constant meteor bombardments, nothing more than a deserted piece of rock. And now it was squeezing with life once more. Nearly every landscape was filled with healthy green fields and the water was the clearest azure blue one could hope ever to see. Spike didn't feel so bad anymore that mankind is gone, maybe it was even blessing if you look at the right angle.

"Spike?", Luna muttered, her eyes closed.

"Yeah?", Spike yawned lazily as his eye lids became heavier and heavier.

"Nothing...", the pony sighed and dozed off. Spike smiled amused, and stroke the soft mane of hers. It felt like the hair of a woman he loved so long ago. Thinking of her, Spike drifted to a dreamless sleep.

* * *

**Man in the moon**

* * *

Spike: When the foal is born, it maybe has a mother looking for it, but one way or the other it has to get up by itself and face life. The beginning is always the hardest, but once you accomplished the first step, the next is a piece of cake. Don't you agree, Twilight?

Twilight Sparkle: Huh?

Pinkie Pie: Oh, that was something really sage-y, Spike.

Spike: Yeah, I've got my hang to it.

Pinkie Pie: You should write that for the next report, Twilight.

Twilight Sparkle: What's going on here? Where are we?

Pinkie Pie: Oh, Twi', have you never been commenting on a preview?

Twilight Sparkle: Preview? What preview? Nothing makes any sense here!

Spike: Maybe it does. Next episode: _Centaur Bolero_!

Twilight Sparkle: What kind of title is that?

* * *

End of Session γ : Elegy of truth


	9. Session δ : Centaur Bolero part 1

Session δ : Centaur Bolero - part 1

* * *

Princess Celestia felt very tired as the time of the twilight was to be called upon. It was really unusual for the one who raised the sun to carry the heavy burden of insomnia inside her head, for she practically never slept like her mortal subjects did. Sure, now and then she would allow herself a nap to collect her strength; thanks for the return of Princess Luna the chances to rest even further became most convenient. But of all the occurrences dawned on Equestria since last year her utmost attention was called on nearly every matter. Politic could be quite tiresome, especially in drastic times. Princess Luna was a godsend for Celestia, even if she didn't reveal it to her little sister. While the dark blue pony looked out for the night, the sun princess had more time to look forward Equestria's current problems, and the list never seemed to shorten. Only the reports of her most faithful student Twilight Sparkle gave her some breaks; how she loved and enjoyed to read the little unicorn's research about friendship. Oh indeed, how she wished to visit her in Ponyville as a casual visitor again, despite the ponies were treating her like the goddess she was. But she knew it probably wouldn't happen for a while due the latest reports she received from her student. Maybe those studies with Equestrius Longus, a really nice lad she remembered, caused her imagination to take great turns, nothing unusual in an age of hers. Still, it was bothering Celestia greatly.

The alicorn sighed as she strode through the corridors of her castle. The white pegasus guards, enchanted with wake spells, allowed to reveal elements of concern on their mostly stoic faces as they stood closely to their mistress, but they vanished abruptly under the corners of the helmets as they entered the next room, once more the samurai like warriors they were. It was a lounge the guards and princess entered in. It wasn't as majestic as the official throne room or the private chambers, no, it was the complete opposite to that:

It was a small round room with an oval ceiling. The walls were decorated stars and lofty clouds while the ceiling was presenting itself of sun and moon merged together. Celestia preferred it to call it the "Equinox", but it would've given wrong connotations to the actual use of the lounge. Whenever the time of twilight arrived, both the princesses of sun and moon were eating together here. One was eating breakfast, the other night meal, switching the roles in both forms of twilight. For Princess Celestia, it was time for breakfast.

"Good morning, sis", Luna greeted her, sitting across the end of a rectangular table which was in the center of the lounge. The moon princess was holding a spoon in the air with her magic as she was taking a new load of supper from her plate.

The white princess couldn't help but smile again and returned her greet, her aurora like mane sparkling brighter before she entered. Twilight was one of the very few times of the day where both sisters could see each other in private terms. This was also a good opportunity for both to make attempts of small talk and information exchange on current events of Equestria; and a short flee from political matters haunting the sun princess.

Celestia enjoyed her morning salad. It was unusually silent in the Equinox as dinner and meal collided from one end to the other. Gazing her lilac rubins to the purple pony, the sun princess noticed something different.

"You seem to be in a good mood today, Luna. Did something happen?"

Luna, who was smiling into her own world, blinked and stammered something incoherently without thinking."What was that?", Celestia inquired further.

"I..." Gulping a lump, Luna tried to regain composure to face her sister about it."I think I made a new friend."

"Oh that's wonderful news!", the white mare applauded and smiled as the bright solar. "I am so happy for you! Would you tell me who the lucky pony is?"  
Luna laughed nervously and looked sideways. "He isn't...really a pony..."

"Oh, so you made friends with an animal? Is it a new pet, perhaps?", Celestia crooked her head and curiosity mixed with slight confusion.

"Errr...", the moon princess bit her lips and started to sweat. "Actually, he isn't an animal either, I think."

The tension of the room made the guards shudder, a rare behavior. Luna's beating around the bush made them realize whatever she would say, it was something inappropriate. And if something was inappropriate to the sun princess, they knew by experience it was going to be ugly. "Big sister, you know the rumors about that...that angel?"

"Yes, what about it?", Celestia pretended to be oblivious the tension and levitated a fork with a leave attached to it. Of course she heard about the rumors, how silly they were...

Then her calm experienced eyes widened in realization. "Don't tell me-"

"Uhm yeah", Luna finally confessed. "They are true. I just met him."

The fork fell with a loud CLANK onto the table.

* * *

Spike's eyelids opened as he became aware of bird singing. Groaning while clutching his side of head, he found himself in the apple tree forest he crossed through last night. Now it was daylight. He looked around with half-closed red eyes confused and tried to think what happened. It clicked immediatly. Oh yeah, last of his kind. Still stuck in pony world which turned out to be Earth. Somehow breathed on the moon and slept on it. Maybe that was the reason he got a terrible head ache. Or it was the lack of smoking. Either way, he felt like crap. Now how did he get back here? _Her highness_ dropped him off here probably.

Yawning and scratching himself Spike felt his stomach torture him again. Getting hungry was one thing, but being surrounded by fresh juicy red apples was another one. Spike walked to the nearest tree with wide open eyes, awing at how delicious they looked.

He snatched at the closest of the hanging apples, a palm big deep red shimmering apple. It looked so good he was starting to gape, and drool formed in his mouth. A thought hold him back from eating one however. Now what happened last time someone took an apple from a tree? Well, there wasn't a snake around, so those apples didn't look forbidden. Besides, he hasn't been having a decent meal for like two millenia, who knew he might get a chance to eat before dying again.

Casting all doubts aside, Spike's fangs dived into the hard flesh of the apple, causing a wet cracking as the juice flooded out and entered his dried throat. It was refreshing his tired body in no time, and the bounty hunter's eyes teared at. It was so good to eat again, the same satisfaction he got when he has devoured that pink pony's cupcake started to tear his heart apart.

His ears perked up as he heard stamping behind him. Before he could turn completely, Spike was caught of guard as something kicked him into the stomach. Hard. The bounty hunter flew at a long span, his half eaten apple hovering at his side in a surreal way. With a loud THUD he landed onto the earth and rubbed along the way, the apple smashing at his face. Irritated and panicked, the bounty hunter tried to wash the juice from his burning eyes to see again. He blinked several times, but he could only see an orange silhouette nearing him, causing him to rustle back by each step it was taking.

"Ah knew it wasn't an fata morga...morgala? morga-whateva' this time 'round. You're dat angel!", the silhouette snarled and shoved dust with its front hoofs. "And you're stealin' mah apples!"

The cowboy hat made Spike recognize who it was immediately. That pony...what was her name again?...he saw her a few times around the other ones around twice the time he woke up in this world, and they weren't really pleasant. He feintly remembered her shouting "angel season". And "apples".

"Your...apples?", Spike managed to asked in a calm but raspier than usual raspy voice, despite that his stomach wanted its content out the body and lurched like ice needles. Half-apologizing-half-jokingly he mused at the enraged pony with a sly grin: "Huh, didn't know that those were your trees. I thought they just stood there for decoration."

"Are ye challengin' me not to see that you didn't know? 'Cause that sounds like yer challengin' me!", the cowmare shouted at him, seething hostile venom.

"Challenging? What the hell are you smoking?", Spike snapped back, not thinking about the consequences. He rolled to the sides out of reflex as the apple farmer charged with her fore hoofs. On his feet again, the bounty hunter got the full view of the pony. The apple farmer appeared to be in complete insomnia, her once proud jade eyes turned into bloodshot orbs of blind anger with big violet rings hanging under them. She was snorting beyond onepony's control and...was her mouth foaming?

_Oh-oh. _Spike cringed at her unnatural guttural growling and decided to get away from the delusional pony as far as possible.

"Get back 'ere!", the cowmare barked and rushed after him. The bounty hunter heard the steel hard galloping behind him as he run for his life. You should have seen that look on his face as he skipped through the endless sea of rubins robed trees aimlessly. Spike knew he couldn't keep this up forever. Sprinter vs. endurance runner, remember? Still, the worn out state of the pony gave him advantage. Fighting her seemed like the only option now, but Spike hesitated. Because of the the last days with the new mammal population making him realize how harmless and benevolent they were, a moralistic inhibition threshold was taking over his subconscious, stopping him to even get the idea of hurting them. Yet he hated running away like a coward all the time, especially from a pony! He just needed to wear the orange cowpony out enough so she'd pass out. That was the plan.

_Now I just need something hard enough to...AHA!_

Applejack saw Spike running to the Apple Acre farm, her eyes frowning in confusion.

The only reason somepony would be stupid enough to enter her home would be looking for something more valuable than her most prized apples. And that would be...

She gritted her teeth in realization. _First he's stealing dem apples, now he wants to steal mah Bits! _She rushed even faster after the angel. But he stopped suddenly. He was panting heavily and leaned at the side of the barn.

"Hold on...I...I surrender", Spike pleaded and hold the side of his torso as he grunted in pain. Normally Applejack wouldn't attack somepony if he or she was wounded. Normally. Her deluded state was making her an unpredictable force not to temper with. And Applejack's head told her that the angel was trouble and was better off beaten into a puddle. She was awake all the days for this very reason, her worries for her friends being attacked by that monster haunted her. Her self declared duty to watch out for everypony was just a logical consequence for her. It was even reason enough for the apple farmer to charge at the defenseless Spike and raise a hoof to strike his face. Time started to stand still for Applejack as she saw the glitter in the angel's right red eye. The hoof never met its destination. With a small kick Spike was leveling a broom which lay close to him and he blocked the ponies attack instantly.

"You know", Applejack received a humorless chuckle from the angel as he stared at her with a ice cold thrilled grin. The thin wood was the only thing which kept both apart. "I can't stop getting dejá vù when I'm around you ponies. _Haven't we met somewhere before?_"

The cowmare blanched at the change of the situation and looked wide eyed at her adversary. She stuttered something incoherently as her eyes twitched.

"Nah, must just be coincidence", Spike answered the question himself, his smile never leaving. "By the way, nice cowboy hat. It looks cute on you."

Panicked, the mare spun around to kick him to the sides, but the besom was shoving the attack to somewhere else. Lightning-fast, Spike jumped into distance as Applejack tried to buck him in the next moment.

"Tell me what yer doing here!", the exasperated Applejack was screaming at him, her eyes trying to stay open and to frown in defiance. Spike however shrugged and pulled something silver and flat out of his pockets (_Wait, is he wearing a suit now?)_ while holding the wooden staff behind his back.

"How about I'll flip a coin. If heads you'll let me go, tails I'll-", Spike couldn't finish the taunt as the pony took the chance to rush at him. She kicked and punched with all her hoofs in any possible way, but the bounty hunter managed to block to them all off with little effort. It felt like attacking a shadow, he seemed to predict every move she pulled off and was constantly on the move. They went on like this, and the attacks of the filly started to grow weaker giving Spike more and more control of the situation. Applejack sweat as she fought more on staying conscious rather than facing her biped opponent who was getting less than a palette of blurred blue in her vision.

"Are all ponies like you here?", he asked her snidely as he swirled his wooden weapon out of boredom. Time for the last pushover. "You've got some classy moves for a farmer, especially for a _horsy_."

Applejack's eyelids bolted open and revealed maddened bloodshot eyes. "STOP CALLIN' ME DAT!", she screeched and while galloping towards him she did an anomaly high jump to Spike's surprise. She swirled in the air and charged with a Killer Bee kick towards the angel like a rocket. Knowing he couldn't avoid the blow, the bounty hunter was moving the broom and held it at the right angle to counter the attack. With a huge CRANCH the pony managed to breach through the angel's defenses. Spike close his eyes to avoid the splinters and to accept the blow, aware that it will hurt like hell. But it never came. Instead something slumbered onto him with a gently shove which Spike caught with his arms out of reflex, letting go of the broken wood parts. Spike opened his eyelids and found Applejack in his arms asleep.

"Heh, even that was cute", Spike chuckled relieved as he watched her snoring peacefully.

He was amused that this fight was really similar to another battle he faced long ago. Even the chatter were almost 1:1 adapted as if Spike followed a script.

"Well, dreams tend to have recurrences, eh?", the bounty hunter shrugged the thought of out loud.

"Eyyyup", a voice answered behind him. Startled, he turned to the half beaten barn which took some nasty blows from Applejack's blocked attacks. A stallion pony was standing before him, chewing on a single thread of hay. His coat was red as an apple and carried a wooden plow around his neck. His cutie mark were two green apples. Spike laughed nervously as the pony glared at him stoically. He was even bigger than the other ponies. While Spike was still the king in sizes, he couldn't feel a little terrified on this calm pony bull. Now this was getting awkward.

"Thank yeah", the colt said plainly then.

"For what?", Spike asked puzzled.

"Fer dat", the stallion pointed at the smaller orange mare the bounty hunter was holding. "She's always like dis once she stays awake for days 'cause of apple season."

Spike couldn't help but grin. "I didn't mind that much. I got a thing for chicks who can kick my ass", he chuckled warm hearty. Even the colt's muzzle twitched to a small smirk, but it disappeared in less than a second. "I take it you run the farm here?"

"More or less", the red pony shrugged and switched sides of chewing the hay. "Name's Big MacIntosh."

Now Spike couldn't held back. He almost dropped the filly as he laughed his ass off, "You're named after a computer?", he forced himself to choke out, his laugh almost resembling neighing. As he noticed the confused Big MacIntosh, Spike tried to calm himself down. The bounty hunter whipped tears away with the cowpony's tail while asking: "Never mind, you were saying?"

The colt glared at him sceptically, before returning to his stoic expression. "Anyway, Ah run the farm together with mah li'l sis. Which yer holding right now."

Spike blinked and looked down to the orange mare. "I see", the bounty hunter replied.

He offered the unconscious pony to her brother who lowered himself so that Spike can place her onto his back gently.

Spike and Macintosh remained quiet and stared at each other. The bounty hunter couldn't help himself but feel crept out by the stallion. It wasn't his bigger appearance, he appeared to be as harmless as a dove. Something was wrong with his eyes...

"Well, I should be going then. See you around", Spike excused himself and was planning to find his way back to the least favorite pony of his. Well, second-least now.

"Hold yer horses, pal", the pony stopped him. Spike craned his neck to the red colt.

"Is there anything else?", he asked.

"Ye haven't paid fer dem apple yet", Big Mac replied, shifting a little to get a better hold of his sister.

"Oh yeah", Spike felt stupid getting reminded of his last sin. He took the coin he still had in his pocket and flipped towards Big Mac. "Keep the change."

The red pony was catching the coin with his teeth effortlessly. A confused frown crossed on the colt's eyes and he spit it back to Spike. "That ain't no Bits", the pony stated.

Spike caught the coin again, but bleached in disgusted by the drool covering his money."Bits of what?", he asked absently as he washed his hand clean with the fabric of his suit. Just gaining a blank look from the colt, the bounty hunter groaned in realization: "Oh, don't tell me I can't pay you with Mulons?"

"Mulons? Never heard of it", the colt shrugged.

Spike sighed and crouched over to let his arms dangle lifelessly. He had to catch up a lot, even in current currency.

Big Mac noticed it and sighed in return. "Listen up, angle-fella. Here on Equestria we are payin' with Bits", the colt said as if he tried to educate Apple Bloom. He lifted his hoof to reveal a small golden shining coin which appeared out of nowhere. "Dis coin here is worth a Bit. One apple costs 1 Bit, so y'all gotta pay 1 Bit, simple as math school of mah li'l sis. Also, yeah broke our broom. Additionally, the damage on our barn can't be left unrepaired. How 'bout 200 Bits, that's a fair price if ye ask me?"

The bounty hunter stuck his hand into his pocket and emptied them with the content's fabric to empathize his complaint: "Well...I don't have any bits of...Bits."

"Then we got a problem", Big Mac scowled as he got the situation. "Usually Ah'm forced t' call the authorities from Canterlot, but they are always so damn far away t' handle crimes here. Also, seein' dat y'all jus' sum angle my sis' friend picked up Ah could let ya go with chores. But mah sis here might get up before yer done, and Nightmare Moon is on the loose 'gain..."

"I've got an idea",Spike proposed and got the stallion's attention. "You taking tabs?"

"Depends from whom", Big Mac mulled over it carefully.

"Twilight Sparkle?"

"Eyyyyup"

"Then put it on her tab. Can you do that?", the 'angel' tried to reason with his best smirk. Big Mac waged over it. With a huff, the stallion gave a nod. "Great. Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm..."

Suddenly the world started to spin around Spike as pain shot through him again. "I'm gonna faint too..."

Big Mac's eyes widened stunned as he saw the 'angle' cripple before him suddenly and lay unconscious. Sudden flash of pictures squirmed through his eyes and he closed his eyes.

"Everypony is falling before me. Story of mah life", he whispered in a melancholic sigh.

* * *

_To be continued..._

_Author's note:_ Yeah, this is a fairly short chapter, and I promised to do more recent updated, but stuff kept me. Dentist, horrible traumatic pain from your teeth, and now my university. I will take a 2 months break, then I'll come back to Pony Symphony. Check also my two other fics out, I might update them too in future.


	10. Session δ : Centaur Bolero part 2

_Author: Oh yeah, I'm back! _

_First off, thanks to** Qetuo6**, he is my prereader now! So there will be less trouble with grammar from here on. _

_Secondly, due request, I will no longer add Cowboy Bebop Ost titles within the story due complaints. I am sure you can find the right track by yourself._

_Oh, and reviews are always great! _

_Cya~_

Session δ : Centaur Bolero - part 2

* * *

Spike walked into the library's lounge, carefully looking around. After checking to see if the coast was clear, he took tip-toed towards the stairs. But Spike stopped in his tracks immediately as he heard the voice he was trying to avoid: "Honestly, Spike, what were you thinking!"

Feeling caught, he stammered nervously: "I-I can explain, Twilight, I-"

"Not you, Alpha-Spike!" Twilight Sparkle snapped to the baby dragon.

The purple lizard blinked as his head turned surprised, and relieved. He found her friend hovering over the other who was laying on the couch with a grumpy expression on his face. Twilight was pressing an ice bag firmly on his head.

"I wasn't thinking, I was eating. Blame your princess for dropping me off at that apple farm." the bounty hunter groaned… and winced as pain shot through his head.

An eyebrow crooked on Twilight's gaze, "Princess?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah, Princess Luna. We hung out on the moon and I dozed off. Like I said, not my fault."

Twilight was at a loss of words. She couldn't believe that Princess Luna might be the cause of all this. Sure, she was Nightmare Moon before the Elements of Harmony released her, but still, she was a royal representative of Equestria now.

"Errr...well, that's... that doesn't excuse you for what you did! Eating somepony's property is the same as stealing! You should have asked before you even think of touching somepony else's stuff! Seriously, didn't angels have manners in your time?"

"Lemmie think about it." Despite his pains, Spike made a mock thinking gesture. "Nope."

"Unbelievable," the unicorn hissed, her pupils narrowing in two angry black dots. "Simply unbelievable! You vanished the whole night, making me worrying sick about you, and what happens? You come back half dead with a bill! A bill of 200 Bits that I have to pay! How could you abuse my trust so much!"

Spike sighed in annoyance. "Why does it bother you anyway? Aren't you the student of this sun princess? OUCH!"

"This _sun princess,_ for your information, is not a bank!" Twilight snarled as she pressed on the ice bag harder to shut him up. "She may be the ruler of Equestria and my teacher, but unlike you I don't take advantage of my friendship with her! I will have to speak with Applejack and convince her to drop the charges. Oh, this is going to be hard...As for you, that behavior of yours calls for strict measures! For one thing, you are no longer allowed to leave at night alone. Second, you will be helping Alpha-Spike assisting me with my studies! That might cool your head off. Speaking of which, our tests will- hey, where're you going!" the pony was taken back as the angel forcefully removed himself from her grip and got up.

"I'm outta here" he said nonchalantly.

"We're not finished yet! What's with you now!"

"Don't play coy," Spike snapped and spun towards her, flashes of controlled anger over his face. "Being her labrat isn't enough for _the great and powerful Twilight Sparkle_, oh no: She wants me to be her next house pet!"

"_She _does not!" Twilight barked back, abashed; and thrown off getting the surname of a certain somepony.

"Does so." he said.

"Does not!" she retorted.

"Does so." he threw back

"Does! Not!" said Twilight though clenched teeth.

"Yep, I think does so." he said with a mock thinking posture.

"DOES NOT! DOES NOT! DOES NOT!" the unicorn screamed loudly, causing a certain baby dragon, who had stayed to watch the argument, to jump in fright. The tension in the air became so thick, that you'd need a gasmask to breathe in it.

"Do-be-does-so" Spike shrugged towards the heavy breathing pony. "You can play with the dino here, no offense li'l fella, but not with me." He put a thumb to his chest to make his point. "Spike Spiegel is his own man and follows his rules. And no magical critter can take that privilege away from him."

That said, he turned to the door and began to march out. He was startled, as a bright flash of light appeared before him, with an angry Twilight Sparkle quickly taking its place.

"Once you step out of this door, your chances of getting your bill paid greatly decreases. I'm warning you, Beta-Spike…So what are you gonna do?"

The bounty hunter looked down at her in silence. Twilight thought her ultimatum was convincing him to be reasonable, but in truth Spike tried his best not to laugh. This was the most pathetic threat he had ever received, even May's attempt to stop him going after Vicious was more impressive. He wanted to rub his superiority into that bookish mare by first letting her think she won the fight, only to turn around at the end and come out on top. Oh, how he _loved _those control freaks.

"I'll tell you what I am going to do." He said, smirking, "I'll be heading out of this door here and getting myself a job."

"A...job?" Twilight crooked her head and stared at the bounty hunter with a confused expression.

"Yeah, a job, how else do you think can I get money?" his smirk turning into a huge smug grin.

Dead silence filled the treehouse. Spike's grin began to strain as he realized that the unicorn wouldn't continue her fit at him. Instead, the pony stared blankly at him. And then she began to laughed - the kind of laugh you'd expect from Pinkie Pie, but not from a mare like Twilight, let alone in this situation! Spike's grin finally faded and turned into a pissy scowl.

"What's so funny about it?" he growled at the hysterical laughing pony.

"You...hrk!" she snorted as she tried to surpress her laugh. "You honestly think anypony just hires you? Just like that? Despite your …this...this is too much...I think you're killing me!" Twilight Sparkle completely lost it and fell on her back and laughed her flank off.

"Laugh all you want! Once I got enough bits, I'll have my own book-free treehouse. This will be paradise." Spike snapped at the mare and stormed off angrily. Twilight's laughing ceased as she blinked, realizing what the angel just told her. And anger overtook her once more.

"Fine, do as you please, you brainless monkey, I DON'T CARE!" She screamed after him and slammed the door shut with a kick of her hoofs. She closed her eyes and tried to take a long breath. But her anger was still there. It was even worse than the time she tried to figure out Pinkie Pie's twitchy senses. Her eyes shot open and targeted the other Spike who was still listening. She spotted his tail sticking out from behind the bust of a stallion.

"And what did you want to explain!" Twilight snapped at the baby dragon, causing him to jump and fall out of his hiding spot. She decided to let her frustration out on her apprentice. Deep down she knew he could take it, and she could apologize to him later anyway. She just needed to get rid of her anger first.

"Err…" Spike got up slowly and started fiddling around his tiny claws. "Wow, huh... okay wait, so...I took care of the trash."

"That's it?" Twilight blinked and stared at her apprentice skeptically, mulling over why he was so panicked about it. "Wait, the cleaners are coming the day after tomorrow."

Spike burped a fire out and instantly held his muzzle shut in shock. "Oh yeah, they probably didn't look at the schedule, ehehehe..."

Twilight gaped at Spike, her anger rising by the second, _"You didn't-!"_  
Before the pony could unleash her fury, a hard knocking interrupted her. Like waking from a dream, she forgot Alpha-Spike's declaration completely and turned to the door. Seeing this opening, the baby dragon took the chance to dart off in some dark corner to hide for the rest of the day.

A grin formed her lips as she opened the door with her magic. "So, crawling back already..." Her grin dropped. "Oh, hi Rainbow Dash, what are—"

She was interrupted as huge rose colored eyes pressed into her own. "Where – is - he!" the pegasus hissed.

"Where's who?" Twilight said, reflexively taking a few steps back.

"You know who I mean, Twilight" Rainbow Dash shot back.

Twilight gulped. "Beta-Spike isn't here, he just left just a moment ago."

"Damn!" Dash muttered and was about to fly away.

"Rainbow Dash, what's wrong?" Twilight asked and aproached her friend slowly.

"What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG!" she yelled out and spun around to now scared unicorn. "I'll tell you what's wrong: He is! I'm not gonna let you, myself, or anypony else get beaten around by that jerk! And I overslept my chance to get it back at him!"

"Dash, wait!" Twilight tried to reason with the headstrong pegasus, but it was too late. In a blink of an eye she only saw a trail of rainbow disappearing. "Oh, this _can't_ be good..."

* * *

Spike knocked on the door cautiously. _Well, this is it then. Here goes nothing._

The door opened, revealing a green coated unicorn. _Wait, I've seen her before..._

"Helloo-Ooooh..." The astounded pony's eyes widened as she saw the bounty hunter standing before her.

"Yeah, hi." Spike coughed to ease the tension, "I'm Spike Spiegel, local last-angel, maybe you've heard of me? Anyway, I saw your ad on the papers. You were looking for someone...some_pony_ to employ?" He forced the last bit with clenched teeth and a forced smile. _Damn that ridiculous lingo._

The dozing unicorn was blinked back to reality as his question stuck into her. She smiled happily. "Oh, oh yeah! I am looking for an assistant because – mpf!"

The green pony's mouth was shut forcefully by the hoof of an earth pony. This one had a bi-colored slush mane. _I'm sure I have seen her too. Hold on, aren't they both-!_

"Please excuse us, Mr... Spiegel, was it?" the earth pony said in a honey sweet tone while gripping the unicorn tightly. "I'm afraid Lyra here doesn't require anypony for hire now."

Lyra freed herself from the death grip and protested: "But Bonbon, of course I- MPFFF!"

Again her mouth was forced shut.

"Have a nice day" Bonbon said before slamming the door loudly. Behind the door, muffled arguing could be heard.

"Huh." Spike just shrugged and took a list out of his pocket, walking away. With the other hand he crossed the first name on it with a marker. "Next job, here I come."

* * *

_Knock-knock-knock_

"Hello, you are looking for an employee?"  
**SLAM!**

_Knock-knock-knock_

"Hi there, I saw that "WANTED" sign-"

**SLAM!**

_Knock-knock-knock_

"Hey..."

**SLAM!**

_Knock-knock-knock_

"Hey-"

**SLAM!**

_**KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK**_

"HEY!"

**SLAM!**

_**SMASH-SMASH-SMASH**_

"I'm going to rip your horn off and stab it into your plothole if you dare close this door-"

**SLAM!**

"Maaaaan" Spike sighed and rested his head on the door of his last attempt to find a job. "I won't get any money at this rate."

Honestly, he couldn't really blame them. If the roles were reversed, the same thing would probably happen. Although the ponies accepted his presence in town rather easily, suspicion is tough ice to break. The best way to stay out of trouble was to _stay_ out of them.

_Maybe Twilight was right…_

"No" he grunted and turned to the road, his eyes filled with new determination, ignoring the sigh of relief coming from the door. "I'll show her. There must be some way to get work here..."

He mulled over and over, crossing his arms as he was deep in thought. Ever since he could remember, he survived in the underworld of Mars. Stealing, robbing, drug traffic…he did all of that. Being an important member of the Syndicate couldn't let him get away from any criminal activity, even less from dirtying his hands with blood. But once he was…free, he remembered how much trouble he had finding new ways to live. He even tried a normal cab job. Where, as if some higher power planned it, brought him with Jet togethter before hell broke loose thanks to the former cop, causing him to be fired on the spot.

The only thing that caught his interest and, more importantly, money, was bounty hunting. And it was the only damn thing he really was good at. But neither stealing nor bounty hunting fit here. The citizens of Ponyville treated him pretty fair despite how he responded to them, and again, subconscious morality was ringing in his head, so no criminal activities.

Also, they were ponies, by Jet's beard! They'd just, he didn't know, eat grass or something to make a living. So there wasn't any point for them to steal anything or even having any police officers-

"_Usually ah'm forced to call the authorities from Canterlot, but they are always so damn far away."_

Spike blinked, remembering that line from Big Mac. So they had some sort of officers to deal with problems among pony kind, but if there wasn't anyone here handling with trouble…

A sly grin crossed the bounty hunter's features. "This is too good to call it irony."

* * *

Above Ponyville was a beautiful rainbow streaming through the sky. Rainbow Dash bolted from one spot to the other, asking around the small village and looking over the highest rooftops and clouds. But to no avail; nopony knew where that blasted angel headed off to. Rainbow Dash scoffed and landed on a cloud to take a break from her big revenge trip. She really hated it not finding him. It was as if he was avoiding her purposely just to taunt her. What a jerk.

The pegasus was exhausted. Her lungs were burning, her coat was soaked with sweat, her eyes were hurting and bloodshot. She didn't get any sleep last night since she planned to dash out at dawn to go after Equestria's new threat, but a few minutes before sunrise, she decided to take a short nap. Somehow she fell asleep. She was so furious when she woke up.

While she rested, a thought crossed her mind. Last time she remembered _Spikevil_ – "Yeah, that's a good name for that jerk" Dash noted – he was looking for his spaceship; which was located within the Everfree forest. Praying to Celestia for luck, Rainbow decided to head to the forest's entrance.

And lo and behold, she found him. Moving silently, Rainbow Dash hid behind a near bush and spied on him. He was looking healther than last time she has seen him; no longer furious and vicious, but in fact completely opposite– calm and relaxed, even whistling to himself. He was no longer wearing his baggy pants but instead wore a leisure suit she knew from Manehattan, only changed to fit his physical atonomy, and was holding something she couldn't make out. She squinted her eyes to get a good look at the thing, and then gasped. It was an axe! Spikevil also was not heading towards the forest, but towards Fluttershy's cottage.

_OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh-! _

Panic squirmed through the blue pony's head as she prepared to attack! But before she could jump into action and stop this beast once and for all, something attacked her. Well, she thought she was being attacked at least. She flew a few meters away from her hiding spot and fell on her back. The attacker has landed on her stomach and the air was knocked out of her lungs. Dash groaned and opened her eyes to face her opponent, probably some horror out of the Everfree Forest who allied with the angel – but what she faced was a big smile on something really really pink.

"Rainbow!" the pink fur ball squealed as she hugged the startled pegasus. "I'm so glad to see you again, I missed you so-so-sooooo much!"

"Pinkie Pie?" Rainbow squeaked throatly and her eyes were shun by the pink mane.

"Boy-oh-boy, you were gone so long, I thought parasprites ate you. But then I realized parasprites don't eat ponies, well, unless Twilight jinxed them again, so I was relieved. But then I was worried again because you were still gone, and Twilight's balloon was broken from last time, so I couldn't visit you and throw a surprise 'Please come back, Dashie' party, so I-"

"Oy, Pinkie Pie!" a raspy male voice interrupted this heartwarming reunion. "What's taking you so long?"

Pinkie Pie gasped for air as if she has forgotten the most important thing ever and shouted quickly "Coming, Spiko!" and bounced off Dash.

"Pinkie Pie!" Dash yelled as she bolted towards her. Landing before her, she protested: "What's gotten into you? Why are you around _him_!"

Pinkie Pie smiled at the panicked pegasus and explained in her usual happy-go-lucky tone: "Spike here...or was it Beta-Spike now? Anyway, he needs help opening his store so I'm lending him a hoof gathering wood so-"

"Woah-woah-woah there, back up!" Rainbow said, raising her hooves to form a 'stop' gesture. "He's opening a store? _And you're helping_ _him_!"

The pink pony nodded excited, but paused as a thought crossed her mind. "Well, he doesn't have anything to open yet, so he needs wood to build a store first. And then he'll open it! We were just about to ask Fluttershy for help."

Dash blinked, just registering the last bit. She was relieved that she completely misunderstood the situation and that her yellow childhood friend wasn't in any danger. And on top of that, her lust for revenge had been replaced with curiosity.

"What kind of store?" Rainbow asked Pinkie Pie with a suspicious glare, trying to regain her coolness.

"It's a surpriiiiise~" the pink pony winked and was about to bounce to Fluttershy's cottage. But she paused herself. "Well, I don't know what the surprise is, which is really unusual for me, but he told me it's a surprise! My twitchings confirm that it's gonna be big!" At that, she left the poor pegasus alone.

Against her better judgment, Rainbow followed.

* * *

Twilight looked around the village for the Spikes. Indeed, she had to pick a bone with each entity carrying that name. The dragon Spike has been successfully hiding from her for the last few hours. The unicorn needed him to send an apology letter to her teacher, making sure that it was written by the baby dragon himself, and to give him a lecture about his responsibilities being her apprentice and to be more careful about his fire breathing.

As for the other Spike, she admitted that she was getting worried about him. He hasn't return for hours and Twilight hasn't heard of her friend Rainbow Dash either. The unicorn had also just remembered that the angel's health was in an extremely critical condition, for she didn't know what he suffered under and needed a more indepth diagnostical analysis before she could let the bounty hunter do something like get a job. She doubted that Spike would find a job that easily because he was still an anomaly around Equestria. She considered visiting Pinkie Pie, as the random pony might be crazy enough to convince the Cakes to hire him.

Her worries disappeared as she reached the center of the market, not far from Sugercube Corner. She found Beta-Spike, along Pinkie Pie and…Fluttershy?

It was a sunny day in Ponyville and a fresh breeze cooled the air lusciously. With such perfect weather, many ponies were out-an-about doing their daily business. As such, the bounty hunter's activity attracted quite a crowd.

"Saw." Spike ordered deadpanned and reached his hand out. Immediately, a pink muzzle was pressing the tool into his palm. Gripping the hilt, the bounty hunter went to work.

"Hammer." he made the same gesture. The requested tool was handed to him by the same pink mouth.

"Nails." he reached to the other side and a box of nails came from a yellow muzzle.

And so the bounty hunter continued to work.

"Spike!" said Twilight, causing other ponies to jump and look confused at her.

She grinned nervously and totted away from the crowd.

"What's he doing?" The unicorn said again, trying to force her voice down to a whisper. _Has Beta-Spike found a job already!_

"Apparently, our angel here wants to open a store." a tomboyish voice piped in out of nowhere.

Startled, Twilight looked up and saw Rainbow Dash lying on a cloud, her back turned to the building site.

"A store? What?" Twilight craned her head and frowned.

"Yeah, I know, but Pinkie and Fluttershy don't seem to mind." Rainbow Dash shrugged and tried to act as if she was taking a nap.

Twilight shrugged that odd behaivour off and asked: "Well, do you know what kind of store-"

"I don't know nothing!" the pegasus snapped at her, her head turned to her and red eyes flaring. Dash blinked as she saw that she caused the shocked unicorn to squirm back. "Oh, sorry Twi, I'm just a little… on edge, you know? I don't trust this guy."

Twiligh remained silent for a moment and then nodded understandingly. Rainbow Dash was always the most suspicious pony around newcommers, and she took the worst bit in the first meeting with the bounty hunter. She considered showing the her the video of May to show her that Spike has no reason to mess around Ponyville, but she decided to delay that for later. Now, her attention was to the nearly finished store.

It took half an hour or so as he was putting planks together, hitting nails on them and sawing off unneccessary parts to build a booth about the size of a manticore. But it wasn't finished yet.

"Sign." Spike said. A split second later, Pinkie pulled out a sign seemingly out of nowhere. The bounty hunter had gotten used to the pony's randomness and took the chance to exploit it for now. As he was done fixing the sign onto his 'store' with nails, he took one last glance at his new creation.

"..." a sweat drop fell across his temple as he looked dumbly at the sign. Maybe he should be careful taking advantage of a certain pink randomness from now on. On the sign were the words 'Fun allowed' in cutesy pink letters.

"Marker," requested Spike, causing the pink pony to make a disappointed "Awwww". Still, she hoofed him a black marker.

With a not so professional attempt to cross out the words and add new ones, Spike gave a satisfied grin and took a step aside to let his future clients read it. Sure enough, it threw a certain lilac unicorn off once more as she could read out the new added words:

PROBLEM SOLVER

7 Bits

The Cowboy

is **IN**

* * *

******To be continued**...


	11. BREAKING NEWS: AN UPDATE

Author:

Hello everyone; been a while.

Okay, guys, let's face it: This story doesn't seem to get any updates. Yep, with the basic reason: Real life stuff, college, and all. My inner mojo, this raw power, drove me to write original work and getting college done.

I just feel like notifying you that I might be ready to continue this story once I have finished my university, the finales starting this year. This crossover, "Pony Symphony", is currently under beta-reading by OceanLord ("Pony Space") to clean the grammar mistakes

I consider to continue writing fanfiction, those stories are very valuable for me. Not because I have a heart for the franchises I write, pah, mind you, it's my sole purpose to improve my English writing skills more and more in order to become an English poet.

As any rate, that's all for now. Sorry for the invonvenience not to fill your daily doses. But I hope you had a nice new year.

I know I did.

Not.

Pahaha.


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